Change Your Brain Every Day - How to Ruin Your Marriage Today

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

Do you want to know how you can ruin your marriage? Didn’t think so. But if you know what NOT to do, you’ll know what TO do in avoid in order to have better relationships. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen tell you some surefire ways to wreak havoc on your close relationships, this first installment dealing with some physical issues you or your partner may experience.

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. We are so grateful you continue to listen to the Brain Warriors Way podcast.

We have a very special week for you. And the question we want to ask is, what are the things you do, not your partner? Not your spouse. What are the things you do that mess up your relationships? We're going to call this week, How to Ruin Your Marriage. If you know how to ruin it, you'll know how to help it. Yeah. If you can recognize what it is that you are doing, it's really always easy to see what the other person's doing wrong. But if you can take responsibility and see what you are doing, then you get to take responsibility for that. It's easier for you to fix it. It's easier for

you to know how to make it better. And to me, it seems like one of the first things is you have to want to, right? And I want to start off by saying I am incredibly lucky. And I'm not just saying that because I'm on film. I'm not saying that because I'm on a podcast. I think I'm an amazing person. I really do. But I'm not an easy person. I'm not easy. So I'm intense. I'm challenging at times and I have the perfect partner. I really do. You are kind and thoughtful and grounding and you, you don't react, you know, you just, you are an amazing human being. So this is our second marriage, both of us. And I figured it out. We know how to mess things up. Yeah. And if you know how to mess things up yeah and if you know how to mess them up then if you're paying attention you actually can make magic

can I think of the 13 years we've been together it's been magical yeah and I love when you said the only way I'm running is if I'm chasing you. You're not going anywhere. Till death do us part. It's connected. But I want to do it in these four podcasts in this week to really look at our four circles. And in the first podcast, we'll talk about the biological things you do to mess up your relationships. And then we'll talk about the psychological things you do. And then we'll talk about the social things you do. And even the spiritual things that you do.

So biologically, what are the things people do to ruin their relationships? Drink too much, do drugs, watch pornography, in my opinion, if they're addicted to it and not paying attention to their partner and they're not present. Those are things that I have seen, we've seen, right, where people are not present in their marriages, where they're not their best selves, where they're not showing up. I guess the pornography part would be not biological. the pornography part would not be biological but drinking too much in the

sense that it can be addictive that if you're not careful it can actually shrink your frontal lobe right that you're comparing your marriage to something not real up expectations that are not real. But when I think of biology, I think of you had a head trauma. And no one's assessed it. And you are acting badly because your frontal lobes or your temporal lobes have been hurt. And so a biological way to screw up your relationships is that you have a brain that's not functioning right and you don't get it the help you need. Yeah. Depression and anxiety are also things, OCD are also things. I've actually seen people who have called me and said, hey, I need to come in. Because they are struggling with depression, anxiety, OCD, and it's destroying their marriages.

And those are, at least in part, biological. Yeah. And so I like what you said. So drugs and alcohol as we come close to the 4th of July. How many domestic violence situations have you seen? Drug and alcohol. I mean, that's the trigger, right? That's the thing that sets it off is your frontal lobes are down.

When you drink alcohol, when you do drugs, it affects your frontal lobes. It affects your judgment, your impulse control. Someone says something that makes you angry where you'd normally be able to control it. The next thing you know, you're screaming, yelling out of control, domestic violence occurs. It's terrible. I often ask people when I lecture, how many of you are married? And then half the people raise their hand and I go, is it helpful for you to say everything you think in your marriage? Everyone laughs. Everybody laughs and they're shaking their head.

No, it's not helpful. Yet, when you drink alcohol. You say more of what you think. The first thought in your head tends to get out. And not in a nice way. And even if you don't believe the thought, it can damage you. It can hurt you. Yeah.

And so alcohol is involved in more divorces, in my experience, as a psychiatrist over the last 40 years, than virtually any other substance. Also, this is something people might not know. If you didn't sleep well the night before, if you get less than seven hours of sleep at night, you have lower overall blood flow to your frontal lobes, which then means more bad decisions. And I know you guys have experienced this. I certainly have. So we had so much we just, we had so much going on for that, you know, like a week in our house, visitors, whatever. And I just didn't sleep for like three nights in a row. And I just woke up foggy, not feeling well. And she's like, you know,

fortunately, fortunately we know this about each other. And like, I, but I just got up and I was just like, I just, I don't want to do what I have to do today. And I just, you know, there was nothing, we didn't get in a fight or anything. And we, there was not even an argument, but my brain was not happy. I was not having happy thoughts. And then I got three nights of sleep, woke up and I literally, the first thought out of my, you know, in my head and the first words out of my mouth were, wow, I feel so good. I'm so happy. I mean, it's just the difference when you get that sleep, how your brain processes. So I know you guys know what I'm talking about. And, you know, we've all talked about the bright minds risk

factors, but you know, quickly, if you have low blood flow to your brain, you're going to say you're going to have more impulse control and less empathy. So if you want to screw up your relationships, never think of things from the other person's point of view. Right. Just be selfish. That'll ruin it. Retirement and aging, the older you get, the less active your brain is, unless you're super serious, unless you're a brain warrior. So you have to be careful. I turned 65 this year and I walk a lot. Stay busy. To keep my brain healthy. Volunteering is a good thing. And I take my supplements and I'm learning new things.

Inflammation. If you have inflammation in your body, you're more likely to have depression and dementia, which means you're, you know, when you're depressed, and you remember when you were depressed. Oh, yeah. I couldn't think about anybody but myself because you can't. It's like your brain's in a tunnel and the tunnel has no windows, no doors.

Dark, dark, dark, dark. And it's dark and your partner gets sad too and they get lonely because you disconnected from them. Well, it's not intentional, but you become self-centered because it's painful. When you're in pain, you become self-centered because it's painful. When you're in pain, you become self-centered. And then we talked about head trauma and getting it treated. Toxins could be where the alcohol is. Mindstorms, which is a new concept you'll hear from me, but it's basically one of your temporal lobes is not working right. And you can have mood instability, irritability, temper problems.

People often get diagnosed with bipolar. They're not. They have their temporal lobes that aren't working right, often from a head trauma. Getting that taken care of. If your hormones are not right, your relationships are not right. They file for divorce more than any other age group. Or PCOS. Yeah.

That when your testosterone's high, it can be more irritable and hard to attach. So glad we got that treated for you. If you have low blood sugar. So there's this great study that they took 107 couples and they measured their blood sugar right before bed. And then they gave them voodoo dolls. And they said, we want you to express your feelings about your partner by putting pins in the dolls. And the people who had the lowest blood sugar had more than twice the number of pins in the dolls. And the people had the lowest blood sugar, had more than twice the number of pins in the dolls.

And Tana has this hangry thing. Oh, so hangry. So bad. He just looks at me and doesn't say a word and immediately goes somewhere where I can get food. It's just a thing. Right. And my daughter biological standpoint, how do you mess up a relationship is you don't think about or care about or take care of your brain, which is absolutely essential if you want to have a

great relationship. One thing you mentioned was point of view. And one thing that I really like that we do, because we're not perfect. We have disagreements. And we've had some sticky arguments in the past. Fortunately, not a lot of them. But we have. And what I like that we do, everybody argues differently. And it's really important to know how you argue and how you guys communicate. One thing I like that we do

is we're both willing to, well, get an argument, step back and go our separate ways for 15 or 20 minutes because that's what it takes me. It takes me. You need to know that. If you stay in someone's face, if you just stay there and just keep at them, but they're a person who needs a little time to process, I'm a person who needs a little time to process. Give me 15 or 20 minutes to go to my corner. Let me think about it. Let me think about your point of view. I will generally come back and go, I'm really sorry for this. This is how I feel about this. But if you stay in someone's face who needs that time, it's not usually going to be a good outcome. I can tell you from my perspective, it wouldn't be. And vice versa. And I call it the bathroom technique. That if somebody's stuck on something and they're just not letting you go,

tell them you have to go to the bathroom. Yeah, I like that. Virtually nobody will argue. And even if you don't have to go to the bathroom, go there for just a few minutes to give the argument space for people's singulates to calm down so that you can shift into what is the goal in my relationship? Does my behavior fit the goal I have? Okay. So what's really interesting though, Chloe and I, my daughter, so it's really interesting for you guys to know personality types because where you and I don't have this problem, Chloe and I were butting heads really hard. She's a very strong-willed child. I would need time to go sort of process things, but I couldn't figure out why that would literally just cause her to flip out and send her up a tree.

Finally, now she's older and we've been able to figure this out. To her, that feels like she has this abandonment issue. She feels like she's being abandoned somehow. When we were able to figure this out and I was able to explain to her why I do it and how she needs me to not go away, but I need her to give me space, right? Really important to understand those dynamics. And we'll talk about communication in the social, but what's coming up? So what are the things you're doing? I hope you answered that. So what are the things you're doing? I hope you answered that question.

What are the things you're doing to ruin your relationships, take responsibility, and then post that. And tag us. And tag us, Brain Warriors Way podcast. And then share it on your social media. As we grow this podcast, brain warriors recruit other brain warriors so that you're creating your own network of people to support you on this healing journey. And we would be grateful if you've learned something. If you go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, if you have learned anything, we would be so grateful if you would write that and give us a review.

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