Change Your Brain Every Day - Dr. Amen’s Strategies to Deal with Long-Term Stress

Episode Date: October 13, 2020

Long-term stress can cause havoc on your brain, immune system, and overall sense of well-being. When the weight of your stresses don’t seem to be going away, it’s vital to take action to get your brain under control. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen give you some practical strategies brain warriors can use to heal the brain and body and reduce the effects of long-term stress. 

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. You're listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. We're talking about the effects of long-term stress on the brain. And

with this podcast, we're going to give you some tips on how to deal with long-term stress. Before we do, I just want to say, if you do learn something, one of the, if these tips help you, please pass it on, share it. If you take a screenshot and you tag us and maybe tag a couple of friends, that would be, we'd be ever so grateful. But, and you can also go to brainwaresbypodcast.com and leave us a review or iTunes. I would be, we'd be ever so grateful. Um, but, and you can also go to brainwareswaypodcast.com and leave us a review or iTunes. You can leave us a review. And I think

you mentioned in the last one, we're almost up to 10 million downloads and we're actually now reaching almost a half million people a month. That's awesome. That's because of you guys. So thank you. Um, we have a winner. So we have a winner for either your book, The End of Mental Illness, my book, The Cookbook, or if you want to wait till January, you can have my new book, The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. It's a memoir. She has gotten so many great endorsements and quotes. It's a great book. I'm humbled by some of the reviews I got. So a wealth of information to move you forward. This is by NH Susie knitter from the United States. I started listening to this podcast after listening to the doctor's pharmacy and Dr. Raymond was interviewed on that show.

I'm amazed at the wealth of information that is freely shared and practical tips to make changes to your routine, to improve your life and the life of your child or your entire family. How our diet is so important to the way we all think and feel. Thank you, Dr. Amen and Tana Amen for the positive stories of how others have improved after following your protocol. Grateful for finding this podcast for sure. Love that. That's why we do what we do.

We love it. So thank you for that. We will send NH Susie Knitter. One of the books, our team will be in touch with you. So strategies in dealing with long-term chronic stress. And, you know, I always put things in threes.

And the first thing to know is ultimately it's your brain that is going to determine how you do in this time. And so you have to love your brain. It's a strategy that we talk about a lot. But if you're in love with your brain, then answering this simple question, is this good for my brain or bad for it, it really takes on new meaning. Am I going to care for my brain in a way that serves my health or that hurts my health? In my book, Feel Better Fast and Make It Last, I talk about the decisions you make to feel better now, but not later, versus now and later. And so if you think of the ones people do now, but not later, what does that make you think of? Pot. Alcohol.

Yeah. Giving in to anger. Yeah. Giving in to anger. Right. Sitting on the couch. Rather than getting up and going for a walk. Yeah.

Binge watching. Dark television shows. Or just being obsessed with social media. I was, so it was Hippocrates who said, I was looking at the quote. It's, I don't know if I can quote it exactly, but he said, I mean, you know, centuries ago, he said, if you feel blue, go for a walk.

And if you still feel down, go for another walk. I mean, this is not something that's actually new to us, this idea that we need to be out in sunshine and nature moving our bodies. And it's been harder lately, but it is one of the strategies. Well, harder lately, not only because of COVID-19, but here in California, the fires and the air quality has just been terrible. So having an air purifier for your house and then doing, um, burst training.

And I have a, I have a, um, treadmill desk. So it's not one you can run on. Like it doesn't go past four miles per hour, but I, I walk at a slow pace while I'm doing email or while I'm writing.

And even if I'm just walking at two miles per hour, I'm not sitting. So I'll do that for two hours. Um, and it's just really's just really helpful because when I'm done, I'm like, oh, I don't feel like I just sat and I'm all like sore and stiff. Well, the people working from home, they're on Zoom. They're doing all these Zoom meetings. And my team knows basically they're not going to see me. I'll be on the meeting, but I'm walking. He paces in my house. Sitting is the new smoking. So this, I just happen to say this because it's so funny. So he's doing the right thing, right?

He's literally doing laps around the entire house, but it drives the kids crazy because they don't have to get up as early now because they're not going to school. And so they've been doing Zoom school. So he walks by their doors during his meetings and it just drives them insane. But it's the right thing to do. I'm stressing their brain so their brain will grow. Right? Some stress is actually good for your brain, like me walking. And too much stress,

like COVID-19, is clearly bad for your brain. So avoid things that hurt it. Drugs, alcohol, not a health food, eating bad food, sitting, watching too much television or being on too much social media. So brain envy, got to care. Avoid things that hurt your brain and engage in regular brain healthy habits. So you already talked about exercise, but my day actually starts with supplementation. I know this is a stressful time. And so I use omega-3. We have a brand new omega-3 power squeeze. It tastes great.

It actually tastes great. It just is amazing. We have a brand new neuro C, which is extra vitamin C, which is we need. It helps move everything. I also take our vitamin D. People have low levels of vitamin D. They're at risk for every bad thing. Cancer dying from COVID-19 depression,

dementia. So vitamin D is really important. When the pandemic hit, we had just released happy saffron. And, and one of our first testimonials was Viagra for women. And I'm like, well, it's one of the reasons I created Happy Saffron was saffron has been found to enhance sexual function.

And decrease depression. And decrease depression. And I'm like, I'm taking this. Also been shown to help with memory. We have another new product called Neuro Greens called neuro greens i like that in my smoothie that um it's just loaded because we've used this time to really create stuff so creating supplementation um yeah no i actually like that it's a good, it's a good time. So yeah, we both increased our supplements and the zinc and all of that stuff, which happy saffron has zinc in it.

20 milligrams. Yeah. So that's what you need. Right. So for me, I really want to touch on as well, the food aspect, because food is also super critical. So when COVID first started, I mean, a lot of places we had trouble finding our normal stuff, right? So you were just getting whatever you could get off the shelves until things kind of settled down and went back to normal. And it was really easy, because you're just in the house all day. And at least here, we had a really wicked winter. So in spring, our spring was really wicked. So the weather wasn't good enough to go out anyways, and nobody was going out. So it was easy to give in and go, okay, I don't have to be quite as strict. I'm going to relax a little bit because we've got to have some comforts, right?

So even I was doing that a little bit. I mean, not to the degree that other people do or to the degree that other people think is normal. But still, that little bit that I gave in, I noticed within a few weeks that I started to feel bad. I was more achy. I was more tired, which we're already tired because that's part of depression. And so I just, I went, wait, this isn't working. This isn't going to, this isn't good for me. And so when the food situation got back to normal, I went back very strict. I mean, like for me, I'm not a, I'm not a baby step kind of person. I'm a jump the Canyon kind of person.

So I went very strictly back onto my Omni program. Zero grains is more like a paleo modified version with our brain work in it. Um, and it just immediately, my blood sugar like dropped, um, to help. Cause I actually struggle with insulin resistance by genetically. Um, so, but I don't have to, I don't have to suffer those effects if I'm paying attention. And so my blood sugar went down to this perfect level, my mood and energy, like stable through the day. Whereas before it was just like up and down. So food don't underestimate your food. Don't give into that. And you also turned off the news. Oh, huge. Okay. Let's just be honest,

but that doesn't give me depression. That literally just makes me angry. It gives you rage. It just gives me rage. It triggers your angry dragon. I just, she already has a judgmental dragon. We're going to teach you all about the dragons coming up. And I just started yelling at the TV and I've been so peaceful because I turned it off, joined my prayer group. So I joined a prayer group that really has helped me to hear everybody being positive about how they, you know, And you have a friend, you guys text. Grateful, gratitude every day. I mean, I was like, not kidding. I'm like, I need to get out of this crazy space in my head. Cause I'm like, I want to, I want to.

Because the news is not the news. The news is clickbait. Right. And it's to drive something that upsets you and no matter what channel you listen to whatever side you're on you're gonna find stuff that upsets you make you angry and it's divisive um and when i realized that i'm like i'm not going to give them that control so i will go online and look up what's going on in the world, but then I will do research and see what's real and what's not real. I will not listen to the news. Yeah. So we hope this is helpful for you. Obviously, you know, if you get feel better fast and make it last our book, the brain warriors way,

my new book, the end of mental illness, we have all sorts of strategies, but no, we're in this for the long haul. This isn't going to go away in November. We're going to be at this at least another year. And so you want to put the habits in your life that extend your brain health, not shrink your brain. I want to leave them with this because it reminds me of the quote that you mentioned from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, where she said, you can apply it to death or you can apply it to these situations that feel like endless and terminal. Remember when she said it is the denial? It is the denial of death that is partially responsible for people living empty, purposeless lives.

For when you think you're going to live forever, you put off the things you know you must do today. And so, yes, maybe this isn't a life. Well, it is a life and death situation for a lot of people. But even if you're just in it because you're like, this is not going to, like, stop thinking this is going to end tomorrow. It's not going to end tomorrow. Rather than having that thought process, yes, we all are hopeful it's going, we're going to like, stop thinking this is going to end tomorrow. It's not going to end tomorrow rather than having that thought process. Yes. We all are hopeful. It's going, we're going to get back to normal, but instead it's like, how can I optimize my life and the life of my family now, even going through this? I mean, that's what warriors do, right? They're like, we have to

make the most of whatever the heck is right. And that's why I love love that and you also say you don't show up on fight day no you have to train every day training all along and when the pandemic started i asked myself will i be proud of my behavior in september and i could have said yes until then until all the social stuff started all right did you learn anything Write it down. Take a picture of it. Post it on any of your social media sites. Hashtag Brain Warriors Way podcast. We'll be so grateful. If you go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, leave us a comment, question, or review. We'll enter you into a drawing to win one of our books. We're so grateful for all the reviews that have happened. And when we come back, we're going to do our segment, Brain in the News. There are all sorts

of interesting articles that are coming out about the Brain in the News statements. 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 brain md you can use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amonclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.