Change Your Brain Every Day - Have a Happier Holiday by Maintaining Perspective

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

Tis’ the season, but many of us are anything but jolly this time of year. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen give you some tips to keep your perspective intact and keep those holiday blues at bay.

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 are talking about the Brain Warriors Way holiday guide to sanity. What are the things you can do to keep your mental health healthy during the holidays, which are filled with stress? Yep.

Before we get there, first-time listener, Seth AC9, hopeful about the holidays. My wife has been following Daniel and Tana for a year or so as I have walked through issues with depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. Listening to your podcast on a whim, I found myself encouraged. What I loved the most was the emphasis on gratitude and giving thanks. I've done this in the past and found it was monumental. Five to ten minutes a day of intentional thanksgiving.

It's been a while since I've done it regularly. Knowing that it actually changes my brain chemistry breathes life into my soul. I will begin doing this again daily i love that breathes breathes life into my soul i like that ac9 thank you so much that is breathes life into my soul it does it actually does we all we often say it's food for the soul so it breathes life into my soul. I love that. So what about the holidays are stressful for you? Number one thing, and you guys have heard me say this before, I hate shopping.

I hate the mall more than I hate just about anything on the planet. Do it during the holidays, and that's like the mall on steroids and I the second you pull into the parking lot what happens to me I'm like it's the worst thing ever so the one thing that does help is online shopping but before I had Chloe my family had as an adult I mean when I was a child of course we did gifts but when I became an adult it was my idea I hate shopping it's just and the one thing that I always pinpointed as being stressful were gifts was was going to the mall buying gifts so when as soon as I became an adult in my early 20s I was like I came up the idea I'm like can we just not do gifts I don't want to do gifts if there were little kids that was fine but there were no little kids in my family at the time. And we made the decision not to do gifts. And it was,

I then loved the holidays because for us, it's more of a religious holiday. It's a focus on gratitude. And so, but when you have kids, it becomes different. Well, when you have 60, until I married you, 70 people in your family. Right. So when I married Daniel and when I had Chloe, it changed, right? Cause now I have a little one and I married into this massive family. And I have to say that is fun. We go to your house and there's usually 60 to 80 people there. So that is a whole different, that's a whole different thing. But it's the gifts. It's the focus on if I forget someone, it's taboo. If I don't do Christmas cards I look bad I'm like it what is that what that is just insanity I've never been the whole perfect little

like socialite white no never gonna be it's just no it's irritating I was born the wrong sex I don't have enough. It's the expectation that is actually so stressful. Yes. But it's mostly the expectation you put on yourself. Yeah, but I have the right spouse because you don't put that expectation on me. And that's, we agree on that. And actually, if you saw our home, it's beautiful at Christmas because you take time to make it. For me, I mean, I'm like here to help, but it's not.

Yeah, no, my space is important to me. My space, my nest is important to me. There are other things that are not important to me. The fact that I don't send you a Christmas card does not mean I love you less. It means that taking the time to do Christmas cards is irritating. It's just, that's all it means. I'd rather talk to you, have a cup of coffee with you. I don't, it's just, whatever.

So let's help them with the holidays. So never forget the 1840-60 rule. It says when you're 18, you worry about what everybody's thinking of you. When you're 40, you don't give a damn what anybody thinks about you. And when you're 60, you realize no one has been thinking about you at all. And I'm 50, so I'm right at that middle point of 50. And so if you're doing things because you don't want to disappoint people, they're probably only going to think about

it for like 10 seconds unless they have OCD and do you care and then if if they're disappointed and it's really not about love for you and the emotional connection then you just have to rethink that relationship right and when I stopped caring about what other people think of me, and for me it was survival, right? Doing what we do here at Amen Clinics, it's so different than what our colleagues do. And I've had people hate me for decades. And it's like perfectly okay with me.

Right. It's like if you hate me, that's your business because I love me. I think what we do is awesome. Same thing. Getting to that secure place where your opinion about you is the primary one, I think that's important. Yeah, it's important. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I spent my 20s completely almost paralyzed

by this worry about thinking, like what other people think of me or feeling like I had to be a certain way, do things perfectly. And somehow in my late 30s, well, I mean, it was intentional. I did a lot of growth in my late 30s, early 40s. It was just so freeing. I cannot cannot tell you it's like just releasing chains so it's yeah going back to that that's why i love like my 40s and going into 50 is just the best time of my life

because you just all that emotional baggage but it took work it took work. So those of you who are struggling, and people struggle more during the holidays, there is work to do. And it's worth it. And in the Brain Warriors way, as we talk about, this idea of mastery, the first thing is you've got to get your mind right. Don't believe every stupid thing. You think that it's a war, so you have to be arm-prepared and aware. If you're really struggling, because depression is higher in winter months, starting in October, November, and then December,

could it be your vitamin D level is low, because you live in a place where there's not enough sun? Is your thyroid low? Lord knows you know the impact of abnormal thyroid. High can cause anxiety. Low often causes depression. And sometimes it's just suboptimal. So it's within the normal range.

But it's low normal. And you just sort of feel like a wet noodle. Same with female hormones. So optimizing your hormones, absolutely critical. And then sustenance. So why do people feel bad during the holidays? Because they eat like crap. And so if you're eating a lot of sugar or foods that quickly turn to sugar, bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, sugar, they're pro-inflammatory.

And we know that inflammation is associated with depression and also with cognitive impairment. So I do not eat badly during the holidays. Why? People go, oh, well, you're just a bummer. And I'm like, no, it's because I love myself. Right. I don't want to feel like.

Because I don't want to have to suffer in January. And we had mentioned this recently that we're creatures of habit right and because of you and your seven cookbooks now because of you I eat foods I love right You don't feel like you're suffering. That love me back. So there is no suffering. People go, oh, that's so boring. I'm like, no, being boring is having joint pain.

So we had brownies on Thanksgiving. And they were really good. But they were sugar-free. Yeah, because you know how to make them. Right. They didn't taste sugar-free, but they were. You have 25 dessert them. Right. They didn't taste sugar-free, but they were. You have 25 dessert recipes. Right.

And you just got to get your mind right. I do the right thing not because I should do the right thing, but because it's about love. Right. That I love myself, I love my wife, I love my life, I love my mission, I love my children, I love my self I love my wife I love my life I love my mission I love my children I love my grandchildren and quite frankly I hate being in pain me too I don't like shoulder pain I don't like me I'm just scared I know when I don't do the right things that increases

inflammation in my body because I played football and I tore my right ACL. I know when I do the right thing. So those of you that go, well, that's boring. It's like, no, feeling well is never boring. Feeling pain is boring. Well, and the idea of putting my family through more pain because I get sick or because something happens to me because I've been sick i don't have great genetics it just is the way it is it is what it is but i can control that one thing and so the idea of me becoming sick and

putting them through more pain is um yeah it feels selfish to me that just feels selfish to me and so it doesn't feel right to me they've been through through enough, and I want to be healthy for them, but I don't want to be a burden. And, yeah, and it's not, this one last thing is it's not about perfection. We know no one's perfect, okay? We're not perfect. It's not like we never have anything, but that is not where we live, okay? So if we do have something, it's small amounts.

It's very occasionally. It's not this whole, like, one day a week thing. That's just not. have something it's small amounts it's very occasionally it's not this whole like one day a week thing that's just yeah it's like 95 5 95 5 and so if you have something okay don't make a big deal out of it get back on track if you're not doing it so much that you're staying addicted right so to have a few bites and move on and we've actually had some close friends die this year. Yeah. Right, I mean as we get toward the end of the year, you think about the people you've lost. And I'm just always reminded of this story

of one of my friends when we started the Daniel Plan at Saddleback Church, was was like 300 pounds, and 5'10". When his wife began to realize that his habits were gonna take him away from her early, she got very upset with him, and she basically said, "'If you abandoned me because you didn't make good decisions I'm not gonna miss you I'm gonna be mad at you right and so you just want to think and I had a close friend this year who died of a heart

attack and he just wasn't as serious as he could have been. And that made me sad. So stay with us. We'll be back. Use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. The Brain Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook we give away every month.