Change Your Brain Every Day - How Can Hormones and Concussions Affect Your Brain?

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

In this week of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, we are wrapping up our content from The End of Mental Illness 6-Week Live Class and Challenge. In this episode, Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen answer some important questions about concussions, hormones, and leaky gut, and then tell the story of how a disturbing event at their church led to a health revolution across the country. 

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. Hi, this is Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. We're so excited you're with us for this week's series. What we're doing is we're playing the live class from the end

of mental illness. We wanted you to join us on this journey because we had such a good time in our class. And the people who joined us had just saw such incredible transformation that we wanted to share the challenge with our tribe. So we wanted to share this with you. And we hope that you will join us in the challenge. Tonight in our last class, we're going to talk about how to make a massive difference and but before we get to it i just want to tell you how beautiful you look oh thank you how happy i am you're here because without you i would have a mental illness oh so i guess i should be nice to you um you mean because you'd miss me or me you mean because i would create one I guess I should be nice to you.

You mean because you'd miss me or you mean because I would create one? No, I would miss you. Oh, just clarify. I'm not going to purposefully do anything stupid because you make me happy. So what's on your mind, beautiful lady? I just can't believe we're on week six. It's like crazy. I know, it just like flew by so let's see if we can answer a couple of questions before we get into it and one question i really like can concussions disrupt the endocrine system specifically

hormonal imbalances that may cause panic attacks, anxiety, etc. I'm taking the supplements you recommend, adhere to a diet you suggest, and mindful of the ants. I have panic attacks at the end of every month for three days consecutively. So what a lot of people don't know, and I write about this in the end of mental illness, which I'm hoping you pre-ordered, that concussions can damage the pituitary gland, which is the master hormone gland in your brain. And you just disrupt all of your hormones from estrogen, progesterone, thyroid, testosterone, DHEA, pregnenolone, and measuring them and optimizing them can be really helpful. And I don't know if you thought about this when I was reading it,

that I wonder if her progesterone yeah because like cyclical dropping can also make it worse so that's i was thinking about that too because yeah that really helps progesterone why because i would end up on the six o'clock news i don't need someone getting a video of me chasing small bunnies or something. I like this one. Please address neurotropics. Okay. Go ahead.

Well, no, I want you to do it. So, neurotropics are just their smart supplements. Right. And that's actually what BrainMD creates. They make you smarter. Smart supplements. So, for example what BrainMD creates. They make you smarter. Smart supplements. So for example- But they're brain targeted. We have brain and memory power boost, which works through six different mechanisms in the brain.

It increases blood flow because it has ginkgo in it. It increases cell membrane communication with phosphatidylserine. It helps blood sugar stabilization with alpha-lipoic acid, mitochondrial energy with acetyl L-carnitine, acetylcholine with huperzine A. I mean, it's just a very special supplement. Now, there are things like paracetam that have some studies showing that they're helpful, but they're very small studies and not very many of them. Aneuotropic, another example, medicine example would be Provigil or NuVigil or Adderall or Ritalin. Things that increase focus and performance. And if you have ADD, I'm very

much a fan of them. But if you don't have ADD, it can actually ultimately make things worse over time. Let's take two more. I'm wondering about leaky gut as a diagnosis. You want to tackle that? Well, you can get leaky gut as a diagnosis if you go through a series of testing, but usually that's not what people come in for. Usually they come in because they have all sorts of other symptoms. So brain fog, depression, they have GI issues, they've got diarrhea, or bloating, or gas, or all sorts of other problems. And that's the reason they come in. What ends up happening is if you go to a functional medicine doctor, they could test you for all kinds of things, including how your gut function. But one of my favorite things

is that when you are suffering from those types of things, we just put you on an elimination diet and most people start to feel better almost instantly. Because if your gut's not working right, you're not going to feel right. And most people's guts, if their diet is poor, aren't going to feel good. And when we clean up their diet,

they start to feel better. And it's just the easiest way that we handle it is to just clean up their diet. And it's not because here's the big misconception and probiotics like pro brain biotics can also, but here's the big misconception. People are like, Oh, this big extreme elimination diet that is, you know, going to be this big thing that I do just for a couple of weeks. No, we actually, the way we do it is it's really just cleaning up your diet in a way that we actually want you to eat that way.

We want you to detox all the time. I mean, why do you want toxins in your body? Oh, my goodness. So Sandy asked, can you still preorder the book? Yes. Can you still get a 50% coupon off anything at BrainMD one time? If you preorder the book, yes, endofmentalillness.com, you also get Tana's cookbook, The 10-Day Brain Boost.

You can watch six of our national public television specials for free. So many benefits by pre-ordering the book. Please do it before the book comes out next Tuesday. Yeah, it's not valid after that, correct? So it's valid now. Now, you have, after tonight's class, we are going to announce the winners of, and let me just go through some of the gifts.

They just said they emailed them to me. That if you tell us your story and we pick it, the grand prize is $5,000. So like physical money. Another grand prize is a full evaluation at Amen Clinics, a full evaluation. It's two spec scans, our history, meeting with the doctor, first follow-up visit, two winners a year's supply of brain and body power, which is valued at $1,200 each. 10 winners of Brain and Body Power, a month's supply. 10 winners of an all-access pass to Amon University, all of our classes there. 15 winners, year-long subscriptions to Brain Fit Life. 25 winners of a signed copy, I'm going to sign them. My new book, The End of Mental Illness.

10 Bright Mind Therapy Lamps, which are just amazing. And 10 Brain Health Revolution Master Packages, which are $240 on public television. I don't remember us ever doing contests quite like this. No, this, I mean, we want your stories.

Ultimately, what we want is you to live the message. Because if you live the message, you become a great messenger, and you change not only yourself, but the other people in your life. So join the contest. Okay. Live from Canada. Thank you. So this week I want to talk about how do you make a massive difference.

Let's see if I can get this. Got to turn this on. So it was 10 years ago. And I just finished writing Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, my second book on the connection between physical health and mental health. And it was a Sunday morning. And I was so happy. Because, you know, when you write a book, you just finished a book.

I'm so proud of you. The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child coming out January 6, 2021. Wow. I'm so proud of you. And so and you when you turned in the manuscript, you were really happy. It was like, wow, that's a lot of work. And it was a Sunday morning and we were going to go to church. And as we went to Mariner's Church here in Newport Beach, I said, why don't you drop Chloe off at Children's Church? I'll save us seats. And as I walked toward the sanctuary, this is an actual picture. I took a picture of the hundreds of donuts they had for sale. And I've been going

to church since I was four years old. I'd always seen the donuts. But that Sunday, it just really made me mad because I'm going to church to get my soul fed. These people are trying to kill me. There is not one healthy thing about donuts. And then right around the corner is bacon and sausage cooking on the grill. And I'm horrified because I know these have nitrites in them. It's bad fat. I just shook my head. And before I walked in the sanctuary, I saw them cooking hundreds of hot dogs for after church. And I felt like I'm in a fight. That's why we call it the brain warrior's way. And I just got punched and punched and punched. And as I sat down, the minister started talking about the ice cream festival they had the night before. And now I'm furious. I just am so unhappy that when Tana found me in

church, I'm typing on my phone. You were playing with the mistress. I'm typing on my phone the mistress and you gave me that look get the mistress out of church that only wives nobody else in my life nobody is allowed to give me this look give me the look. That was the look. And so I showed her what I was writing. Go to church and get donuts, bacon, sausage, hot dogs, ice cream. They have no idea they are sending people to heaven early.

Save them, then kill them them this is not the plan you gotta let me say something at some point here so it's true because we have been studying about this for a while now granted you know several years before this even we weren't savvy to all the information about what food does to our bodies. So just to be fair, I get why churches do this. They do this as a way to bring people together because food brings people together. They just aren't really aware. And they're finally starting to become aware. The problem is they're not really getting on board as they're becoming aware. But I'm not sure that the intention was to kill people, let's be clear. But that's what's happening. Save them, then kill them. Do you know if you go to

church in your 20s? I know, you actually die earlier. No, you don't die early, but you're more likely to be obese and diabetic in your middle ages. Which makes you die earlier. Hello. So that Sunday I prayed, I do that. God would use me to change the culture of food at church. And while I'm praying this prayer, I'm thinking to myself, this is the dumbest prayer you ever pray. How's that going to happen? But as you already know about me, I have an attitude problem. Growing up, my dad called me a maverick, and to him, that was not a good thing. And so I just told God he had to deal with it. That's my prayer. You know, I mean, like, listen, don't listen. This is my prayer. No lie. Two weeks later, Pastor Rick Warren from Saddleback Church called me.

And I had never met Pastor Warren. I mean, of course, I knew who he was. He's the senior pastor at one of the largest churches in the world. They have 18 campuses. Over 60,000 people come to church every Sunday. Their main campus is in South Orange County, but they also have one in the Philippines. They have one in Berlin. They have one in Hong Kong, one in the prayer, he had baptized 800 people.

And he said about halfway through, his back started to hurt. He's like, everybody's fat. And then he said, well, I'm fat and I'm a terrible example to the church. And he said, will you help me? And I'm like, you had me from below. I was like, oh my goodness, how exciting. I'm thrilled. And together with Tana and our friend Mark Hyman, we created the Daniel Plan, which was a community-based healthcare initiative. The first week, January 15th, 2011, 15,000 people signed up. The first year, the results were just spectacular. Participants lost over 250,000 pounds, better energy, focus, creativity, sleep and mood,

reductions in stress, blood pressure, blood sugar, sexual dysfunction, which is always fun to talk about in church, and many medications. And I mean, wasn't this just one of the highlights of our life helping them? Oh, it was amazing. It was a huge undertaking. I mean, this was, it's still going. I mean, we're still sort of feeling the aftermath and the aftershocks of it. It's pretty amazing. Well, Pastor Warren and I and Mark Hyman went on to write New York Times' number one bestselling book, The Daniel Plan. In 2015, it was named Christian Book of the Year. The Daniel Plan is done in thousands of communities, churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques around the world. And it's based on five pillars.

Faith. Why the heck do you care? We talked about purpose. Food. Food is medicine or it's poison. Fitness. You have to move. Focus, which was all about brain health and friends.

You get better together or you get sick together. And it just shows that intention, the prayer, can lead to a revolution in health you just have to stick with it yeah no i and i really think the small group aspect of it was this that that was the secret to the success 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 BrainMD, the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.