Change Your Brain Every Day - Health & Habits: What Are You Guilty Of?

Episode Date: January 10, 2019

Like it or not, when it comes to your health and your habits, you’re modelling behavior for those closest to you. So, are you modelling health or are you modelling illness? In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss how you can model a healthy lifestyle by using lever actions that will make an impact in your life and the lives of others.

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 in our new year's resolution and we are so happy you are along with us, joining us. I want to read this testimonial. You have a fan. Awesome. At least one. At least one. This is Patricia Delaney.

I love Dr. Amen. I'm a recovering heroin addict and recently got clean off marijuana. I'm 36 days completely drug free. On day 15, I read The Brain Warrior's Way and I'm already down 20 pounds. Wow. Dr. Amen is changing my life for the better. Thank you. Dr.

Raymond and his beautiful wife. That's awesome. Amen. Um, but I'm so happy to do this with you. I know me too. You are a good brain warrior general. So now that we're talking about general and sort of kicking people's butts,

we need to do more with training. What are the daily habits people should start doing, should's the wrong word, but could start doing if they wanted to live the brain warrior's way. And the

first thing in the morning, tell yourself, today is going to be a great day. It starts with intention. And then ask yourself, are your daily habits serving you, or are they hurting you? And if they're hurting you, develop new ones. Exercise is so important. And I think one thing that's always helped me a little bit when I really want to move my day forward, what are five lever things I can do today? What

are five little things that I can do that are sort of lever actions to move my one-page miracle? So pick one small lever action in each of those categories that's going to make the most difference. Other small things you can do. Who can I appreciate today? So that would go in the relationship part. So that would go in the relationship part. That's a good one. Send a text to your spouse, you know, just saying you love them or make my cappuccino like you do.

So that's a lever action. That's what I'm talking about. So what can I do? What are the actions I can take today to move these forward? And then another training thing we talk about in the book is sleep. Oh. And how important it is to be disciplined around sleep. I was talking to a patient today and her daughter has had panic attacks, but only when she didn't sleep,

when she stayed up too late studying or had a sleepover. We have another teenager like that in our house. Our daughter, if she does not sleep, she's very anxious. So her anxiety revs. Doing the right things to protect your sleep. Absolutely.

Part of why we love homeschool is because she's not forced to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning. It's just the dumbest thing. But anyway, she's not forced to get up super early. She can sleep. Just think of all the teenagers who are sleep deprived and then people wonder why 36% of girls are going to suffer with depression during their adolescence. Well, and they act up. But teenagers' brains are going through this massive pruning thing. I mean, their hormones are raging.

Their brains are being pruned. They're not getting enough sleep. If we had any clue how to understand them. They're on social media comparing themselves to fake people. And we're not taking the time to understand those changes they're going through. Well, we're not a warrior. and you have to be in this society. In my new book, I have this device, this writing device. You're not sure if you like it, but it's, if I was an evil ruler,

what would I do to create mental illness? And it's just everywhere. So if I was an evil ruler, I'd have kids get up at 5 o'clock so that they start school at 7.30 or 8, you know, especially if they have to grab the bus. The bus would come, what, at 7 for her to start? 10 till 7. 10 till 7 for her to start school at 8. And that's just unreasonable.

Right. And then there are the smart kids, right? Who often take a zero period. Or the athletes that have to start before. It's like, wow. Right. When she was going to take volleyball. Volleyball.

She had to be there at 5.30. She had to practice at six o'clock or something insane. We had to leave at 5.30. Right. I was like, what? It's, we're not thinking about our brain. And you touched on social media. I'm sorry. I have to leave at 5.30. I was like, what? We're not thinking about our brain. And you touched on social media. I'm sorry.

I have to touch on this. So this just happened in our house. Now, my daughter doesn't typically spend a whole lot of time on social media compared to most kids. But she got caught up in this loop because she was like, she goes, is this just in Newport? Like, where do girls look like this in my grade, right? So she, like, starts flipping through. And there's just all these girls that literally they're like Barbies. Right. So they're all super skinny, super tall, super long blonde hair. Like it's just crazy. And, and I'm, and first glance she's flipping through and she's like, this isn't normal. Why? Like, is this just

here? Is this just a Newport? Like, I don't understand. Like she's getting all frustrated and I'm like, slow down, back up. Now I know social media. I know, I know how this works because you know, of all the things that, that, you know, being on social media and all the stuff they do to pictures and all that stuff. Cause they used to do that to mine. They used to doctor my pictures. I'm like, you need to stop doing that. It's actually bothering me. Cause then when I see myself for real, I'm like, wait, that's not the same. Who was doctoring your pictures? Oh, a few years ago when those apps first came out, the team started putting doctoring my pictures,

whoever I had at the time. And I'm like, I don't like them doing that because then I feel weird. Or if someone sees me out, they're like, that's not her. I didn't know. Oh, yeah. No, I didn't like it at all. So it was weird to me.

So anyway, so, but I'm like, sweetie, take a second. Almost every one of the pictures was taken at an angle, like straight down to where these girls are like leaning forward so they look really skinny or they're like, and I'm like, I'm not trying to, they are cute girls, but I mean, they're not, it's not, the pictures are not, they're not 100% accurate. It's all I'm trying to say. Well, and the lever thought, you know, one more training thing is you have to train your mind to help you rather than hurt you.

And the lever thought to destruction is I'm not good enough. Right. I'm not enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not rich enough. I'm not strong enough. I'm not rich enough. I'm not strong enough. I don't have enough fans following me as I'm not enough. And that drives depression. It drives anxiety. It drives even suicidal

thoughts as I'm not enough. And so I want you practicing. I am enough. I'm smart enough. I'm pretty enough. I'm strong enough. I'm enough because to believe the opposite is to drive you down. Well, and just this generation, her generation is taught, like we want the most likes on our pictures. So how do we take a picture that looks perfect? Right. And that's or race or racy. And that gets into a whole slippery slope by itself. But I mean, half the time they're not even real. You know what I mean? They're just created. All right. So we've talked about mindset and assessment and sustenance and training the ease essence. We talked about that a bit, turning your pain into purpose, being purposeful.

You live longer, you actually have less incidents of dementia. You have more motivation to do the right thing. Um, do you have anything else to say about essence? No, it's pain to purpose. I mean, that's really what it's about. It's about finding your passion. It's really about taking something painful in your life and helping someone else. And it's about why is the world a better place? Because I breathe. It's not about- Because you breathe or breathe. Breathe. Did I really? No, let's erase that last one. Why is the world a better place? Because I breathe.

So it's not about what everyone else can do for me. It's not a selfish thought. It's really about how can I be making things better? Because you always feel better when you're doing things. And when you make things better, people are going to criticize you because they like the status quo. Change is hard. So if you're getting healthy, then you're going to have people in your family make fun of you.

I've certainly had that happen. And, you know, I'm used to people making fun of me, right? Well, as you look better, as you feel better, as you look better, as you're more confident. One thing that I don't know who said it, but I heard Tony Robbins say it. I don't know if he was quoting someone else. But I love this concept. There's two ways to have the tallest building in town. Build the tallest building or tear everyone else's down.

So, you know, if someone is not feeling good about themselves, they're going to tear your building down. But if you believe what you're doing is the right thing, then you have to stick with it. And that's what I've done with the brain imaging work we do here at Amen Clinics. I got no end of grief, still get no end of grief for it. But if I'm right, and I am, it disrupts 50 years of education and training for all my colleagues. And I mean, why wouldn't you look at someone's brain seriously? So, but you have to be confident inside yourself.

And I know there are people out there thinking, but you don't know what I've been through. And we have these stories. They're endless. We don't know what you've been through. That's the truth. But we have so many amazing stories. I mean, I've, I've told you my story. You all know my story. You've told your story, Sandra, our friend, um, you know, she's one of my just favorite stories as far as how she turned her pain into purpose. Her daughter was killed by a drunk driver and just, she, it just almost destroyed her, but she didn't let it. And she turned that into a huge, powerful ministry. And for women, she speaks all over the place. We have so many stories like that. Rabbi G,

my friend, Rabbi G who, his little girl died from leukemia and he he started something called Kids Kicking Cancer. He's a black belt rabbi. He's a black belt. It's really cool. But anyways, he started Kids Kicking Cancer, a worldwide organization now. So we just have so many amazing stories of people who went through horrible tragedies. So brain warriors do not grow up with perfect families and perfect families. No, dear Lord, no. But they've

decided to change it. And that's what we want for you. We want you to ask yourself, what do you want? Is your behavior getting you what you want? And is it purposeful? Is the world a better place? Yeah. So I used to think, oh, if only I had grown up in this house that was this, that, the other, not what my house was for sure. I used to think, oh, if I just had this family that was this way. And then all of a sudden I woke up one day and I realized, wait, I'm successful and I'm doing what I'm doing because I grew up in the environment I was in. It's not the other way around.

It's not like, oh, I would be more successful if I didn't have that. I'm actually successful because of it. So it's all in how you see it. Because of how you respond. And you taught me this, that responsibility, so that's the R in mastery. It's responsibility. It's not it's your fault. Right. right it's not blame it's how you respond it's your ability to respond right and um i would have never dreamed we want you to be responsible

because the fact is you are modeling your behavior today you're modeling health or you're modeling illness by your behavior. If you're bringing cookies to work, you're modeling illness. You're saying, I love you. Let me hurt you. Right. And you discovered our responsibility. That's my intention. You were seguing right into that.

That was so good. Did you like that? Yeah. The ability to respond we got to hang out with haven uh last week oh my god it's like a little drug haven is our six-month-old granddaughter she's so pretty oh Oh, she's so ridiculously cute. Just ridiculously cute. She's pretty and happy and I have new pictures. Oh, the way she kicks her feet. I took her shopping for Christmas. Oh, yeah. She's such a sucker now. It's over. I'm always a sucker. You are. I have so many girls. All the girls in the family you're a sucker for. Three daughters, five sisters, 14 nieces, two granddaughters.

And you like spoiling them. And, you know, what you do around her, you're modeling health or you're modeling illness. And when Hava was born, she was born with all of the eggs in her ovaries that she'll ever have. Speaking of which, infertility is like at this alarming high. It's crazy. Well, it's because of our habits. Our habits are not helping us. But, you know, just thinking about responsibility.

This is the always, when I say this, it always gets people to sort of stop. It's Haven was born with all of the eggs she'll ever have. Her habits are what her mother feeds her and the stress and toxins she's around are changing the genes in those eggs, a process called epigenetics. It's turning on or off certain genes, making illness more or less likely in that adorable baby, but also more or less likely in her children and her grandchildren. And so modeling health is really important to me because I want what's good for her. See, that's love, not loading her up with donuts and candy. That's not love. That's stupidity. Um, I mean, I don't know how else to say it,

doing things that hurt her and her generations of her. That's the brain warriors mindset. And I know some of you listening to this, going, Oh dude, you don't have to be so serious. And I'm like, dude, you have to be that serious. That's what the Brain Warriors way is about. It's about being serious. And the why is you do it for a year or it's years long. This isn't a two week program. Well, that's why when we did our course, it's not, it wasn't a six week class. It was to get you grounded. It was to get you entrenched in it. Get you a black belt in health. And we actually issued black belts.

And the statistics were stunning about people who not only lost weight, but their energy went up, their pain went down. Our testimonials were amazing. Their focus, their mood. Yeah. I mean, we're thrilled to be able to share this podcast with you. So happy new year. Oh, and by the way, we have that class recorded for people who want it.

Right. And go to amen.org. If you want to join us for six months of training to become a brain warrior. Get your black belt in the brain warrior's way. 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.