Change Your Brain Every Day - How the Brain Functions when Behind the Wheel

Episode Date: August 19, 2019

Whether travelling, commuting to work, or just running errands, many people spend a considerable amount of their lives in their cars. The inherent danger on the road is high because many people’s personalities change once the key is in the ignition. In this first episode of a series on brain function and driving, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss how the brain factors in to the experience of driving an automobile.

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 to a new week of Brain Warriors Way podcasts.

And this week, we're going to be in the car with you. We're going to talk about driving and the brain because it is actually one of the most common causes of stress, of trauma, and of things that damage your brain. And what triggered this for us is our almost 16-year-old daughter got her permit this week. And so before I ask you about your conversation with her, I want you to ask yourself at home, what about cars or transportation has been good for your brain or bad for it. And too often the people I see, including one of our first conversations about your brain, is cars were bad for your brain.

Right, there's a lot of people with trauma around driving. So we're going to talk about the brains of drivers. We're going to talk about things you can do while driving to keep yourself safer. And some very funny stories coming up in this week's podcast, Your Brain on Driving. So you had a conversation with the youngster who, by the way, was on this podcast. Right. And we got great comments about her. And not so good about us, but great about her. That's funny. Yeah, she's a pretty special kid.

And it's interesting. We drive up in LA a lot. So those of you who drive in Los Angeles, I understand. It takes a lot just to go to a Zen place. It's the one time that my personality just like, I just get like really tense. We'll leave it at that. Driving in my car. But we were talking about it. I was trying to point out to her just how often and how closely you have to pay attention. Because we've seen so many accidents.

We drive up there so often. And it's, you know, it's a long drive. It's, it's can be two hours to get up there. And we've seen these accidents happen right in front of us and how quickly they can happen. So as we were going to DMV, she and I were talking and she was, she's been nervous. She could have gotten her permit almost six months ago. But she's been too nervous to do it. And she just wasn't in a hurry. And so she's, we were having this conversation. I said, you know, you have to think about the fact that people get in the car every day and they just trust that everyone is going to do what they're supposed to do. They just trust that all the brains they are getting on the freeway with or getting on the road with are

healthy. They're not thinking about the fact that the brains they are getting on the road with have PMS, menopause, they're sleep deprived, they've got PTSD, ADD, all this slew of, or they're intoxicated. Oh, no. Let's keep going. Because, and I apologize if you're in the car listening to this, it's horrifying. It's horrifying. Because they're brains with head trauma. There are brains with ADD. There are brains with early dementia.

And what horrified me when you and I talked about this, there are brains on the road with late dementia. And there are also brains – and the reason there are dementia brains on the road, cell phones. Because it used to be, when I first started, a common call to my practice is my mother couldn't find her way home. And I had to go find her in a parking lot somewhere. And she's crying her eyes out because now she recognized something's wrong. But now the phone will take you home. Right.

And so people are actually being diagnosed years later with dementia because of cell phones. And that was the point I was making to her is don't assume and always be, just always be ready, always be watching. You can't relax for a second. And one of the reasons that, you know, you'll see people on their cell phones, reading texts and things, and they'll say, but there's no one in front of me. You don't know what can happen in just a split second. You know, we see it happen so often. So I was just trying to like explain to her. And, and if you're one of those people on the road, one thing you have to think about too, when these things happen, when someone cuts you off, you might be a good driver, you might be a defensive driver, but all of a sudden you can get pretty angry. And, you know,

it brings out another side of your personality. So now you've got an angry driver because someone cut them off. And now it's just, it's just all these different dynamics that happen on the freeway. And if you've got new young drivers, you know, they're about to drive, or some of you have people who have not been able to drive. Maybe they had a DUI and lost their license and they're about to start driving again, and it's time to learn from their mistakes. So we just thought this would be a good topic. So I have a patient who was an orthopedic surgeon up in San Francisco, and by accident, a 25-year-old kid cut him off on the freeway. But this was one of those surgeons who would throw things in the operating suite.

I know the type. And when the kid cut him off, he started to chase him. And he actually chased him eight miles west on Interstate 80 outside of Berkeley. And the kid got really upset and anxious and tried to pull off the freeway. And this doctor in his big BMW cornered him on the off ramp. And you know how surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, sometimes will put these long metal rods in your femur if you break your leg. Well, he took the metal rod and bashed in the kid's windshield. But what he didn't know is as he was chasing this ADD kid,

a highway patrol officer was chasing him. And he was arrested at the scene. And yes, there's the judgment. Yes, good. That was my kid. I am married to the judge, the jury, and the executioner. But so he calls from jail. He calls Amen Clinics from jail, which is not uncommon for us.

And he says, I think I need to see you guys right away. And my assistant came in, and she was chuckling. She said, he said right away, I think that's a good idea, don't you? And when we scanned him, he had two things going on in his brain. So you never know about the brains of the drivers coming toward you. And he had the cingulate from hell. And what that means, the cingulates in the middle front part of your brain, I think of it as the brain's gear shifter. It lets you go from thought to thought, move from idea to idea, be flexible, go with the

flow. And his was way overactive, which what you see for people whose cingulates work too hard is they're worried, they're rigid, they're inflexible. They hate surprises. And if things don't go a certain way, they can't stand it. And they can often explode. We often see it in autistic kids, in OCD. And for this guy, it was sort of an obsessive compulsive personality disorder. And he had trouble in his left temporal lobe. And left temporal lobe, as we've talked about a lot on our show, is often associated with mood instability, irritability, dark thoughts,

sometimes violent thoughts. So if you just think about what are the dynamics of going on in his brain is he gets surprised by the kid cutting him off. And it's a dangerous situation. He gets surprised. He can't let it go. And then he acts out in a way. And what's interesting is the reason I saw him is I was seeing his sister who had problems with stalking. And those kinds of things run in families. So let me throw something else out there. Let's just say the person he was chasing had the same kind of brain and maybe had a weapon in the car. So let's just throw that out there. Well, when these things happen and freeway shootings, school shootings-

You don't know who you're chasing. So be careful. You don't know. So, you know, everybody, when somebody cuts them off on the freeway, you might think to yourself, you know, you jerk. Right. But let it go. But then for me, because people cut me off, I'll often say to myself, oh, you jerk, but then I'll leave it alone because there are seriously crazy people out there. And why would I engage with them? And people's personality changes when they turn the key in the ignition or push the button. Their personalities also change under stress.

So there are some people that flight or fight thing kicks in so i just you know i'm that happened with us one time you say i gave you ptsd but it's because we were attacked but when i'm attacked like i went crazy and you tend to get thoughtful and quiet and like and that's not me um so you think I gave you PTSD. So your personality changes under stress. They don't know what happened. Now, we have talked about it, but we were walking on Corona Del Mar Beach on the jetty. It was nighttime, and we have this big, white, fluffy German shepherd who's beautiful. And all of a sudden, two pit bulls dart off their leashes.

They were fighting dogs. Fighting dogs and attack dazzling. And they had very much a gangbanger type of owner who was a scary looking dude. But when I get scared, I freak. I mean, I like go to this crazy- So we have a gangbanger, scary looking dude who all of a sudden- And a scary mom. You start screaming at him.

But that freaked you out. So my point is, now replace that with those of you listening. A fucking dude who all of a sudden- And a scary mom. You start screaming at him. But that freaked you out. So my point is, now replace that with those of you listening and driving. Those of you listening and you're thinking about driving, think about your personality if someone challenges you, right? You could be the nicest person, you're successful. The surgeon, he's successful. But under stress, people's personality change, right? Mothers, someone threatens your child. Someone like that surgeon, you feel threatened.

You've got a baby in the car. You're likely to react in a way you wouldn't normally react. So now you've got a big problem. When we come back, we're going to begin to give you some strategies on what to do when you get frustrated in your car. If you learned anything from this podcast, post it on any of your social media sites, hashtag BrainWarriorsWayPodcast. And you can submit questions at the end of this week. We're going to submit questions. At the end of this week, we're going to answer questions. Go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. Leave a review, please, and then leave a question. And if we choose your question, we'll send you a signed book.

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