Change Your Brain Every Day - How to Manage Your Mind When The World is Falling Apart

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

When chaos hits the world, how do you protect your inner peace? In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen share real-life tools to manage your mind during turbulent times. From global conflict to personal crises, they reveal how to avoid being hijacked by the 24-hour news cycle, reduce worry and panic, and build true mental resilience. You’ll hear how Tana’s mindset shifted after facing one of her biggest fears—and why prepping for disease, dementia, and depression might be more important than prepping for doomsday. This is your guide to staying grounded when everything feels like it’s spinning out of control.

People who start the day with the news are 27% less happy. When the world seems like it's in turmoil, how do you manage your mind? Today on Change Your Brain, Dr. Amon and Tana discuss three strategies on managing your mind when the world seems to be in chaos. So number one in dealing with your mind is what do you want? On one piece of paper, write down what do you want? Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual help, and then you go does it fit? The second thing, notice what you like way more than what you don't. We publish the study on negativity bias, being negative, bad for your brain. So that's why you

have to turn off the news and then not believing every stupid thing you think. When you're listening to this write down a strategy because it's easy to go oh don't let this the stress be your excuse but you got to have a plan. The ultimate question is this. ultimate question is this. Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. Autism. What is, how do you know if you have, autism is not one thing.

It's many different things. There's so much to know about autism, it's not hard to understand. Hi, this is Dr. Daniel Lehmann. I'm so excited to tell you about our new course, Healing Autism, A New Way Forward, that I did with my friend and really autism expert, Dr. Jerry Cartonel. It's a completely new look at autism.

This course is for parents of children or adults who have autism, but it's also for professionals. We hope you'll join us with healing autism, a new way forward. We are very excited to be with you today and we are going to talk about how to manage your mind when the world is falling apart. Tana and I were away on vacation in Europe. I gave a lecture in London, which was incredibly fun. And went to Italy for a few days and then Switzerland, which we dearly loved. And during that time, Israel bombed Iran and then the United States. Let's be a little more clear.

I'm sound asleep. It's six o'clock in the morning and you tell me we dropped bombs on Iran and no context. I just jumped out of bed because my brain immediately went to 9-11. Those of us who lived through 9-11, it's like that was such a scary time. And I'm like, we need to get home. I was out of the country when 9-11 happened and I got stuck out of the country without medication that I needed. And so, I mean, it's really easy to like start to spin on what's happening, what's going

on and like, you know, how is this going to affect all of us? It was, I kind of freaked out and you were like, I don't think you were like thinking about that at six o'clock in the morning and how that was going to go over. So this is very important when the world seems like it's in turmoil, how do you manage your mind? And so often, news companies want to keep you glued to the terror of what's going on. And if you don't discipline your mind, you have the news on all the time. And people who start the day with the news are 27% less happy in the afternoon.

So yes, there's been quite a bit in the news. But I grew up in the 60s where there were riots and assassinations and the Vietnam War. And I had friends who had brothers come home in body bags. And I'm like, nothing like the 60s. But we still have to learn to manage our minds. And I've been so proud of you I've been so proud of you that ever since we did the show on positivity bias, that you have been way more positive. Well, I also watch the news less. And I, because it does affect me. I'm one of those people who starts screaming at the TV within, you know, 15 seconds, I'm

screaming at something. So I know that about myself. So I like can't watch the news. Can you imagine what that does to my nervous system? Hear you screaming. But you know, one of the things that helped me, unfortunately, I had to go through something very hard for it to help me when my mom got sick. When my mom got sick and we spend so much of our time, something occurred to me.

As people, we spend so much of our time thinking about all the things I certainly do. I mean, I'm a prepper, right? So I think about all the things that could go wrong or might go wrong and being prepared and like paying attention to the news and paying attention to all the things in the world that are happening.

And then all of a sudden when something that is like one of the worst things that could happen, happens. It's like, wait a minute, I didn't see that one coming. Cause I was thinking of like world crisis when in fact, you know, someone you love dying in your house is, is that is, it just took everything I had to deal with that one thing. And I'm like, why do I need to be constantly looking for more trouble when I have enough trouble that's real that I have to focus on? And somehow it shifted that for me.

Well, and your mother was a world-class prepper. She was ready. She got that from me actually. At the end of the world. And you know, when we cleaned up her house and and all that, I mean, the stuff she was preparing for. Yeah, she took it to an extreme. And I just, I kept thinking during that process, is she wasn't prepared for the right things.

That cancer. If you're a prepper, you should be prepping for cancer. You should be prepping for heart disease. You should be prepping for cancer. You should be prepping for heart disease. You should be prepping for dementia. That those literally are the things that are likely to get you. And you know, maybe it's the Chinese, probably not. Maybe it's the Russians, I don't think so.

I think it's, you know, I was in fact, I was adding this up that we have a trillion dollar defense budget in the United States, but we're not we don't have a defense budget really against addiction. Well, we don't have anything for prevention for sure. And last year, Anheuser-Busch spent $7.2 billion on sales and marketing. And Coca-Cola spent $3 billion Pepsi spent three billion and Facebook spent 11 billion. And they're hijacking our brains and our bodies.

What we should be prepping for is our minds deteriorating, our brains deteriorating, our bodies deteriorating, our brains deteriorating, our bodies deteriorating. Well, and to your point, when my mom got sick, it actually did help me. There was something weird that happened and I was like, why am I so focused on what could happen? And it helped me to let go a little bit and not be so hyper-focused on. When you call me a prepper, you like to say that I'm prepping for the end

of the world and the zombie apocalypse. I'm not. I'm a city volunteer. I was one of the city volunteers and I'm a trauma nurse. And so I'm always like prepping for like, I'm prepared for like earthquakes, floods, fires, those types of things. Or as much as you can. Some of those things, as we just saw with Texas, you cannot always prepare for. But

what happened when that happened with my mom was I thought, you know, I'm just, it made me less uptight. I started to just settle down a little bit and like, I don't know, this is really morbid thoughts. So maybe you guys will want to cut this out, but I just realized we're all going to die. And all of a sudden, I'm like, we're going to die. Like why am I spending so much of my energy on this when I should be relaxing a little bit and getting my cortisol down. Relaxing a little bit to get your cortisol down. And when you meditate, I'm not a relaxed person by nature. And when you meditate on a regular basis, you're so much happier.

Which means of course I'm happier. Right. And so I want to give you that time. All right. Strategies for dealing with the insanity of the world coming at us very quickly. And I like what you said. And ultimately, when I was in college, I took a death and dying class. I think it's the most important class I took in college because I've known I was going to die.

And so compared to death, how important is this? And there's not that much that's that important compared to death, how important is this? Right. And there's not that much that's that important compared to death. That's true. When you see so much death, I saw so much of it where I worked. It can make you, it can do two things. It can make you a little bit hard and cynical because you have to be a little bit to deal with it.

But then at the same time, it can make you a little bit paranoid. Like I like parenting and things like that. You're always afraid of that thing that can happen. So you have to figure out how to deal with that. You have to have a strategy. So number one in dealing with your mind is what do you want? I always default with my patients to the one page miracle. On one piece of paper, write down what do you want? Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health.

And then you go, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life. So always default to that. And this weekend something really insane happened. My mother. Oh, I love this. Two tattoos. She's my hero. I always say the reason I'm bringing this up is I don't have any touch. She's 93. But if I got one, it would just say, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life? And it helps me with you so much because my goal with you is kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. Always want that, don't always feel like that. Rude thoughts show

up in my head. But because I know what I want, I act in ways to get it. So I don't say every stupid thing. I think I make your decaf cappuccino every morning. I'm like, does it fit? I want this kind, caring, loving, supportive relationship. And then it was Saturday afternoon. I got this text on my phone of a foot with a rose tattoo. You just like glossed over that a minute ago. His 93 year old mother, my mother in love, I call her my mother in love, cause she's amazing. So I get this, we get this picture and I'm like, that can't be real. There's no way your mom went and got a tattoo.

Your siblings were pulling your leg. Nope. Turns out she didn't get one. She got two. She got one on each foot. And I, there was something about it. I was like, doesn't, I know people are going to like have all kinds of opinions on whether she should get a tattoo or not. She's 93. Okay. So she's amazing. Let her have a tattoo. I just thought it was so amazing

because it was like, she just went and did something that she would never normally do. And it was awesome. And I thought it was so great. It was so fun. Like the kids think she's the coolest grandma ever on the planet. With her purple hair. Her purple hair, black nails and her tattoos. She dresses to the nines. Like she's so cute. Step number one.

This was your mom. That's why I'm so normal. Not. No, that's just cool. Like she's just cool. She's adorable. If you would have told me that when I was growing up with this. She was going to have purple hair, black nails and two tattoos.

Not my mother. No way. Struggling with your mental health at Amon clinics, we use brain imaging and personalized care to help you heal at 11 locations, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, New York, Orange County, California, Seattle and Scottsdale. Visit www.amenclinics.com. So the second thing, know what you want and then notice what you like way more than what

you don't. So, we published the study on negativity bias, being negative, bad for your brain. So that's why you have to turn off the news if you're just continually glued to the news waiting for who's going to bomb the next person. That's just your mainlining cortisol, the stress hormone, which shrinks your hippocampus. I'm very vulnerable to that. I'm so vulnerable to that.

I know I can't do that. I get the headlines and then I just sort of leave it alone. Like I want to know what's happening and then I leave it alone. So I think that's critical. And then not believing every stupid thing you think. That questioning your thoughts, oh, it's the end of the world. Oh, it's World War III, right? There was a lot of that going on and it's like, probably not. And if it is, we're all going to die between now and then. What is it really matter? That was not helpful to everybody listening.

It's like, we're all going to die. What is your life going to be like between now and then? I have a friend who is on Hawaii. You remember a couple of years ago, there was a text that went out that said there was a nuclear warhead coming. You have 10 minutes to live. And 38 minutes later, they went, oh, sorry. That was just a. That was steady.

Crazy. Yeah. But whatever it is, I like love our friend Byron Katie. She always says, in this moment, right now, do you have everything you need? Yeah, not 10 seconds ago, not 10 seconds from now. In this moment, do you have everything you need? So anchoring yourself to the present moment.

Well, that's what prayer and meditation does for me. It just, that's my whole, that's what it does. It brings me to the present and anchors the grounds. Well, you know what? I'm working on a new program to be launched, hopefully early next year, in churches and businesses and schools. And I was reviewing the literature on prayer and what it does, and we actually published a study on it, it decreases activity in an area of the brain called the posterior cingulate gyrus. So,

that's toward the back of the brain. It's an area involved in the default mode network. And the default mode network is sort of like the chatter in your head that talks about you. It's the self-referential part of you that is like the voice. So you become more aware of things besides yourself, like others and your surroundings and well, when the chatter goes down, you stop thinking so much about yourself. And that's usually a good thing. And I have found when people get depressed, but then they focus on being helpful to other people, their depression becomes much less.

That's why they say that people who volunteer do so much better. So, turn off the news, know what you want, ask yourself if your behavior is getting you what you want, kill the ants, the automatic negative thoughts, pray, meditate. Have a daily routine. And don't let the stress be your excuse to hurt yourself. Oh, well, I have to drink because I'm so upset about what's going on.

Or no, I have to smoke pot because both drinking and smoking pot is going to lead to withdrawal where it's going to make you more anxious than before. And I don't think we've talked about Japanese walking on this podcast. Oh dear Lord. We drove our kids crazy Japanese walking. We were in Europe and I just saw this article on Japanese walking and how it's more effective than getting 10,000 steps a day. And since I read that, we have done it every day. So we're like going on a month of like every day.

Japanese walking, I think it's modern Japanese walking. So just walk normally for three minutes. Can you do that? And then walk as fast as you can. And then do that for three minutes. So it's basically like interval walking for three minutes at a time, fast and the normal and then fast and the normal. Five times.

Right. Five cycles. So it's five cycles. Yeah. Yeah. So normal, fast, that's six minutes. Repeat that five times. That's 30 minutes.

They found it's better, like significantly better than walking straight for 10,000 steps which will take you an hour and a half. This takes 30 minutes, your legs are stronger, your heart is younger, it decreases blood pressure, improves something called heart rate variability. Love this so much because I'm always like... Well, it does another really important thing for those of us that have ADD and cobwebs in the morning. It's why I've always told you that like working out first thing in the morning is so important

for me. But the Japanese, when you're interval walking like that, it actually helps the same way that intense exercise helps me. It just clears those cobwebs. It just gets you like your brain working. And so I think the most important thing we're telling you during a stressful time, don't let the stress be your excuse to hurt yourself.

And it's easy to say that, but I think the way that you do that is you, like with listening to this, actually stop when you're listening to this, actually stop when you're listening to this, write down a strategy because it's easy to go, oh, don't let this stress be your excuse, but you got to have a plan. And so if you just listen to what we're set like what you're talking about right now and some of the tips we're giving people, write them down and take, you know, the first just

do one or two at a time and just go, okay, I can do that. I can do that for a week. And then after you've sort of mastered that for a week, add another one and then do another week and then add another one. I mean, think about it. If you do one thing a week and you master that for a week, by the end of the year, you've done 52 new things that are, that you've mastered that are going to completely change the trajectory of your life. So, um, but you've got gotta write it down. You gotta actually have that plan and not just hear someone saying, don't do this, don't do that.

Well, and the ultimate question, is this good for my brain or bad for it? That's the ultimate question. So if you just start with that, and if you can answer that, if you listen to this podcast on a regular basis, you'll be able to answer that. And the takeaway from today is turn off the news.

Or at least like you said, limit it to five or 10 minutes. Just get the headlines. And know that their goal is mind-sharing. Their goal is to keep you there. And they don't keep you there with puppy stories. They keep you there with horror stories. And often says, if it bleeds, it leads. And you don't want to let big corporations manipulate your mind for profit because the more eyeballs, the more they get paid by advertisers. I think that is a critical point.

I know there's one other really good strategy that helps because there are certain things that happen where you know, I just I like this strategy. We've talked about it before, but I want to bring it into this idea of, you know, stress taking over your life. I love the strategy that you taught me a few years ago about plan ahead for problems and have what like not until the 12th thing that goes wrong. So whether it's vacation or whether it is a big event or whatever it is, that really helps to not allow your brain to just like be hijacked by the stress when something goes wrong. You can't believe the number of my patients who

love the rule of 12. Oh, it works so well. I mean, we've had to change it to like 120 at times, but it works so well. When we move. Yeah. And this last vacation, we had to like bump it up just a little, but it, you know, it's okay. Cause as long as you know, cause what happens is your brain for me, my brain becomes occupied with counting instead of like being really angry about the thing that just happened. I'll be annoyed by the thing that happened, but it's like, I've already told myself, I'm not going to be angry until the 12th thing goes wrong. So I'm like occupied with like counting instead of just spinning on what happened. So we just got back from vacation and I...

Four things before I had to fly to meet you. Four things on the flight there. So I was like, so I got off the plane and you're like, how did it go? I'm like, we're on four. So let me just say for those of you that don't know about the rule of 12. When Tana turned 50, that was like seven years ago. You just gave my age away. We're going to Paris.

I was taking you to Paris for your birthday. And I just noticed that sometimes on vacation that something would go wrong. Well, especially international. And it would just sort of mess up the trip for a day or two. Yeah. And I'm like, 12 things are going to go wrong. And it's based on the idea that the more flexible you are, the more psychologically healthy you are. In fact, on our intake here

at Amon and Clinics, when we see new patients, we have them take a test. And one of the measures is how flexible you are. And I'm like, 12 things are going to go wrong. Let's just promise ourselves we're not going to be upset until the 12th thing goes wrong. No, the 13th. You have to let the 12th things go wrong. 13th thing goes wrong. And like three or four things went wrong on that trip and no one was upset the whole time. No, we laughed because we were laughing. We're like, okay, that's three. And then we're like, so we were sort of making jokes about it, but we never really, it's

just it changes the, it changes your thought process. It's training flexibility. Yeah. And that's a good thing because all of you out there are really good at solving problems. And so you want to get into the good problem solver part of your brain rather than the offended part of your brain. And we can all get to the offended part of our brain. So I'm going to remind you about this when we start our construction. It's not 12. It's definitely not. I know, but I'm going to remind you about it because that's the thing that gets you all wound up. Yes, Tana's never met a space that she didn't want to improve.

I think so. Women, leave me comments. Do you not like to change your spaces? Like it's just a female thing. I'm not sure it's a woman thing. You're in a war for the health of your brain everywhere you go. Someone's trying to shove bad food down your throat that will kill you early or give you an addictive gadget. Put terrible news in your head making you anxious. Hi, I'm Dr. Daniel Amon, founder of Amon Clinics

and Amon University. My wife Tana and I created the Brain Warriors Way course. It's 26 hours of content where we walk you through specifically in detail how to have a better brain and a better life from the food you eat to the thoughts you think to the strategies that you can engage in every day. If you want to survive and thrive you have to become a brain warrior. of 12. Leave us a comment, question, or review. Subscribe to the podcast. We're very grateful you're a part of our community.