Change Your Brain Every Day - How Do Positive Changes Influence The Brain?

Episode Date: October 29, 2018

When you have a thought, your brain experiences chemical reactions that can change the way you feel. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen describe how knowing about the physiology of your body and brain gives you the freedom to change it, and how to bring your attention to the things that influence a positive change in how you feel.

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. Greetings, everybody. You are in our series on my new book, Feel Better Fast, and make it last about the things we do that help us feel better now and later versus now and not later. And listening to this podcast is one of the things that can help you feel better now. You can share it and hopefully help you feel better later if you actually follow the things that we're giving

you to do. If it becomes a habit, there are good habits and there are bad habits. And in fact, I want to read one of the reviews we got because this is fun for me. This is one of the things that makes me feel better fast. So please keep sending them. As we're going to see coming up under inspiration, it drips dopamine in your brain. Right, so much fun.

So this is from Michelle Ray Healing. That's her name that she has posted. After receiving a SPECT image scan in 2012, I've dedicated my life to healing my brain and recovering my health. I've enjoyed and appreciate every podcast that I've heard so far. Dr. Amen and Tana Amen work so well together and provide a sense of humor that lightens very heavy topics. I think she thinks that we are crazy together.

Anyways. If she only knew. If she only knew. If she only knew, yes. These podcasts are so informative and provide essential information for healthcare practitioners and people who are interested in transforming their lives. Thank you.

It's awesome. So thank you so much. Well, that's why we do this. That's why we're here for you. And, you know, when I wrote Feel Better Fast, we talked about brain. You got to get your brain right to feel better fast. But the next part, once you get your brain right, is you have to get your mind right. And what I've learned is so many people live with bad habits, bad mental habits.

And what we often tell you is where you bring your attention determines how you feel. So before we get too far down the road with our next topic, a lot of people ask when you write a new book, because you come out with them fairly quickly, and you're a prolific writer, what's the difference? Like, what is going to be unique about this book? I mean, the title says a little bit of it, but tell us what's different about this book compared to, I mean, obviously, Memory Rescue was very specific, right? So that one was pretty clear. That one's about you're going to the dark place. What can you do to rescue your mind and your memory? But why is feel better fast different than say, change your brain, change your life?

Well, change your brain, change your life is sort of the method we use here at Amen Clinics. But I first wrote it 20 years ago. There are so many new things that have happened. And the idea behind Feel Better Fast, it's really for 2020. It's so many people have short attention spans. And it's what are those things that people do that help them feel better now, but not later, versus now and later. Okay. So it's what I see in my office day in and day out. I saw somebody yesterday who had trouble stopping smoking pot because it made him feel better now, but he didn't like it. Right.

He didn't like the dullness that he felt and his partner didn't like how he acted when he was on it. So it's very much I get rid of the pain now, but it causes trouble later. And so this book is based on a major theme in my practice, is how can I get people to love doing the right things that help them feel better fast, but in a way that lasts. Okay. So if I'm understanding, change your brain, change your life, which I already know this, but I just want to put this out there, is really about the method we use here at Amen Clinics. It's about why we do what we do, and it's about how, really, it can transform lives. This is more about what you teach patients on a day, like, change your daily habits.

Like, these are the things you can do every day, right now, in the moment, that last long term. And the book is filled with tiny habits, which we've talked about. But it's what's the smallest thing I can do today that will make the biggest difference. So leverage. And you can leverage your behavior. So for example, I know if I put my Fitbit in the morning, I'm much more likely to get 10,000 steps than if I don't put it on. Right.

And other people tell me, I know if I put my workout clothes, if I get them out the night before, I will work out tomorrow. Right. And so it's really the science of how people can change. So like, so metaphorically, it's really cool. I'm going to need to get going. But I'm doing this emergency volunteer class for the city. And they teach you how to lift these couple thousand pound platforms if someone were stuck underneath it. And you do this cribbing and shoring and whatever.

And it looks pretty cool because it looks pretty heroic. You can lift this couple thousand pound platform with a crowbar, basically. And it looks like pretty heroic. You can like lift this couple thousand pound platform with a crowbar basically. And it looks pretty awesome. It looks like it's a big deal, but really if you leverage it right, it's not that hard. So if you're using the right technique, it's really not that hard. It's pretty, it's actually pretty simple. So, I mean, in essence, it's that same idea. You do the right things and it's not that hard and you're able to do something pretty cool. I really like that. Yeah.

I like that. See, I'm smart. Because it's about leverage. I know you're smart, so I married you. Besides. Don't even. Don't go there. You're so cute.

Okay, don't go there. You should have just ended it where you did. All right. Feel better fast and make it last. Marry a redhead. No, I thought you said that caused pain. Rational mind. So got to get your brain right.

And the tiny habit was, is this good for my brain or bad for it? Rational mind is where you bring your attention determines how you feel. And I was talking to one of my patients this morning, and when she could get her mind in the right space of gratitude, of excitement, that her team is not there to punish her, her team is there to support the goals she has, and kindness and gratitude really make a big difference it changes everything in her life and so on my new public television special for the first time um chloe did a section with me it was really so much fun to have our 15-year-old daughter do a section. And she did a section on rational mind with me.

And she was actually pretty vulnerable on national television. And she does not like to be vulnerable. On national television, she talked about some of the thoughts that tortured her. Like, I'm not good enough. Which is so common among many of the women. Especially teenagers. Well, in an exercise we did at Amen Clinics yesterday with our staff, there was a 59-year-old woman who said exactly the same thing.

So I'm not good enough. But on the show, Chloe said the thoughts that bother her is I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough. Why do I have to work harder than other people? Why am I the only person who feels this way? I don't fit in. And the reason I included Chloe is 20% of teenage girls suffer with major depression. It's horrifying when you think of it. That has probably quadrupled

over the last 40 years because they're on social media all the time and they're negatively comparing themselves to all these people who have fake lives and photoshopped bodies. It's ridiculous. So I want to touch on this for a minute because this has been a huge thing for us, right? Working with our others. And this is such, and I'm speaking to you out there listening as well, because this is a big thing. And we see so many teenagers, we see, as you said, women, people with this problem. This idea, I don't fit in. And Chloe's turnaround was, that's not always a bad thing.

That can be a good thing, right? Now, that wasn't a one-time thing she had to do, and then it just was all better. All right. She works on this. This is daily. I'm telling you right now, it's a daily thing. Sometimes she feels sad that she doesn't, you know, hurt. The thought is, well, I, why can't I just hang with other teenagers? Cause she's, she doesn't, she's more, she's always, it's been hard for her to hang out with other kids because she prefers adults. And I could get into this, but I won't. But what she did, she found a group that works for her, right? The group at church, and she started, she's a volunteer for the student leadership team.

And this group celebrates those differences with her. So she found a group that celebrates her differences, that appreciates those differences in her, and she still has to focus on this daily thing of, it's okay, maybe it's a good thing that I don't fit in. Maybe those things about me are positive. Well, so that is part of the turnaround that we'll talk about. But they put her in that leadership role. When you feel sad, this is so important to pay attention to what we're going to talk about because we can teach you how to flip it. But before we talk about that, I want to give people a little basic training for their mind. And I learned this when I was a biofeedback therapist. So 1987, 1988, when I just finished my training to be a psychiatrist and a child psychiatrist,

I took a 10-day course on biofeedback, which is what's that? It's we actually hook up your body to measuring instruments. So hand temperature, heart rate, breathing, sweat gland activity, muscle tension, even brainwaves. And if you know what's going on in your body, in the physiology of your body, you can learn to change it. And so what I used to do is hook up people to all these things, and then I'd do a word association test with them. I would go like mother, father, job, baseball, chocolate, and see what words they responded to.

So if you hooked me up, when I got hooked up, and I would say mother, immediately my hands would get warmer. They'd get drier. My muscles would relax. My breathing would be deeper. And I just felt better overall. But if you said, father, my hands would get colder. They'd start to sweat.

My muscles would be tense, my breathing wouldn't be as efficient because one was relaxing and one idea was stressful. So whenever you have a negative thought, your brain releases chemicals that make you feel bad. And it happens immediately. Your hands get colder. They start to sweat. So if you ever like shaking someone's hand and they're cold and wet, it's usually because they're nervous.

Their breathing becomes erratic. Their muscles become tense and they can't think. Negative thoughts actually drop the blood flow to your brain. Right. And we've all had that experience where in the middle of the night, for some reason, some thought comes to your mind, something you have to do that's stressful, and you can't go back to sleep, and you toss, you turn, you're like heart rates, you know. We know that it causes these horrible things.

And it happens immediately. Right. So thoughts are powerful. Thoughts actually have mass. Isn't that crazy? They have weight. That's crazy. And your thoughts virtually affect every cell in your body.

So a lot of negative thoughts is sort of like the pollution in Beijing. It really can negatively impact your immune system. It can negatively impact blood flow to your brain. So is that why when I am regularly, as a discipline, doing the meditation, listening to like, I actually really like the Bright Minds music, and I'm listening to that. I'm doing my meditation, my prayer on a daily basis. And I read my little verses and I literally feel high, but then I get really busy like everybody and I get away from it for a week or two and I start to feel weighed down, right? Right.

That's exactly what's going on. And so the opposite is also true, right? When you have negative thoughts, your body responds immediately in a negative way. But when you have positive thoughts, happy thoughts, hopeful thoughts, loving thoughts, we have a lot of those about each other, your brain releases a completely different set of chemicals that make you feel good immediately. Your hands get warmer. They become drier. Your breathing rate slows down.

Your muscles relax. You feel happier. So where you bring your attention determines how you feel. And we've learned thoughts are automatic. They just happen. They're based on complex chemical reactions and memories from the past. And often from undisciplined thinking. That there's nowhere in school people teach you how to direct your thoughts.

And they lie. They lie a lot. And we call them ants. Automatic negative thoughts. And they lie. They lie a lot. And we call them ants, automatic negative thoughts. And they steal your happiness. They rob you of your joy. These little buggers are flat out toxic. And I see they're a major cause of divorce. They're a major cause of school-related problems. They're a major cause of job-related problems. And learning how to kill the ants is just absolutely critical to you staying healthy. So when we come back, we're going to talk about how to get rid of the automatic negative thoughts.

I know we've done it before, but we're going to go into more depth. So I just want to end this on a positive note. So in Chloe's words, if a 15-year-old can do this, you can do this. So one of the things that she did that I love, she does this on a daily basis. That thought of, you know, it's painful to not fit in. It's painful to be different than other people. Now she regularly says, well, if I wasn't different, I wouldn't be in this position. I wouldn't be able to do this. I wouldn't be able to do that. And then she consciously will go

through the house. It's really cute. She'll like skip to the house. I love my life. I love these things I get to do. If I wasn't't different I wouldn't be able to do these things I wouldn't be on the leadership team and so she starts to celebrate those differences instead and so just think that way think like a 15 year old for a minute not in all ways all the time yeah you do for sure use the code podcast 10 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 Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook we give away every month.