Change Your Brain Every Day - Instead of Smoking Pot, How Do I Deal With Anxiety, Depression and Pain?

Episode Date: April 25, 2017

Not all marijuana use is recreational. Many people use marijuana purely for its medicinal effects. But are there healthier alternatives? Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana discuss many of the options available for those who believe medicinal marijuana is the only way to cope with their afflictions.

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. So we are back talking about pot. Not my favorite topic. If you listened to the last podcast, I'm feeling like my blood pressure's a little bit up, but I want to be fair. So is there ever a time that it's appropriate to consume marijuana in different forms? And the answer is probably yes. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. And also for when it's not appropriate for you, for when it's not good

for you, and you know that it's affecting you and your family negatively, what are some of the alternatives to anxiety, sleep issues, pain? We're going to talk about that as well. Temper problems. Right. And so I have patients who've had traumatic brain injuries who then become terribly aggressive. Right. Like severe. We have one with severe traumatic brain injury. They can't take him in public because he has a weird reaction.

He attacks men. He just attacks men. So that's a pretty severe issue. And when he consumes pot in cookies or something like that, the aggression goes away. And as we talked about on the last podcast, when our father-in-law had pancreatic cancer, marijuana really helped with the pain. Other people use CBD oil and say

it's really helpful for children with seizure disorders. Now, because it has been federally illegal, there's been no research money. And so you can find case stories for anything is good for you, including sugar. Right. But I think our thought process is if you've tried the other things and they've truly not been successful, then this could be something to think about, but not marijuana in general. Because the THC not only gives people a high, it can trigger mental health illnesses, mental health problems. And so the study is likely going to be with CBD oil,

which is one of the – Minus the – Minus the THC. Right. And I'm looking forward to seeing the studies. All I can tell you is being a psychiatrist, and I'm a child psychiatrist, and so often what we would see is somebody 14, 15, 16,

never looked like they had ADD. And all of a sudden they're in my office because the parents think they have ADD. But they didn't have it at six. They didn't have it at eight. They didn't have it at 10. And my first thought is they either had a head injury and that's why they look like they have ADD now, or they picked up pot and parents go, no, no, no. And then I'll see their scan and their scan looks toxic. Overall decreased blood flow for their age. And I'll have the teenager by him or herself.

And I'm like, why does your brain look toxic? And they'll start to cry and they'll say, you won't tell my mom or you won't tell my dad. And they'll tell me they've been smoking pot for a year. And their decrease in school performance parallel their pot use or, you know, I mean, sometimes it's alcohol use. And so what I would say, it's not okay for a developing brain. And I've seen this actually, you know know because we have a teenager who's in junior high and four of the kids i saw this explosion happen she's actually now homeschooling by her choice um but four of the kids that she started school with who are now partying um smoking pot

drinking alcohol have been expelled so it's a big deal and their parents think that it's not they don't believe that, you know, they think their kids are really good kids and it just is a misunderstanding. And they're completely unaware of the reality. So it's sad. So I've not seen it improve brain development for anyone. But, you know, the common reasons people use

is they can't sleep, they're in pain, or they're struggling with anxiety. And so let's talk about alternatives to pot that might not haveinks the hippocampus, that seahorse-shaped structure that gets memory into long-term storage. And so what are some of the things you found helpful for anxiety? Yeah, so I have trouble sleeping and I'm a little anxious. So for me, I really, I mean, we say it all the time, so it begins to sound rote, but it's just so true. Meditation, meditation, meditation. Acupuncture is really good. I love, you know, my chiropractor helps me as far as just really relaxing everything.

Exercise. I mean, all of those things are really my key to unwinding. And I don't do well without them. So you actually meditate every day? Yes. And I really try to focus on something. And this is not always easy, okay? So when there's someone that's really causing problems in your life, I will literally sit and meditate in a positive way and pray positively for that person. And it's hard. You have to practice doing that. Pretty soon it becomes easier.

But what I find is that, you know, they've actually done studies on forgiveness and on prayer and meditation. And if you won't do it for them, do it for you, right? Because when you don't let go of that anger and fear and anxiety, it actually increases your anxiety when you don't let go of that anger. And you're the one that pays the price. It's like drinking a cup of poison and expecting the other person to die.

Right? So you're doing it for you. You have to focus on- So mental health hygiene. Right. And one of our favorite meditations is loving kindness meditation. And it's really simple to do. And you do it for people, to yourself, to someone you're thankful for,

someone you're neutral on, and someone you're having trouble with. Now, in theory, it's easy. But you have to practice doing it with the person that... So it's may I be healthy. Right. May I be happy. May I be at peace. I mean, something I be healthy. Right. May I be happy. May I be at peace. I mean, something really that simple.

Right. And you repeat it. Repeat it for a couple of minutes for yourself. Yeah. To someone you're thankful for, like I would do it for you. Right. To someone you're neutral on. The store clerk.

To someone you're having trouble with. Right. Someone who makes you really angry. And that's where it takes practice. And it's been found to decrease anxiety, decrease the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, decrease migraine headaches, decrease pain, and improve sleep.

So, I mean, how simple is that to take four or five minutes a day and close your eyes and just repeat, may I be healthy, may I i be happy may i be at peace may tana be healthy may tana be happy may tana be at peace and then someone neutral and then someone you're having trouble with and then you're done so and this is not one of those like pie in the sky oh it's like, you know,

Pollyanna, like I'm going to, you know, it decreases. I like Pollyanna. I know you do. Decreases my anxiety thing. This is studied. Like these types of meditations have been studied.

Forgiveness has been studied and relaxing your brain, doing these things have been studied. And the reason why is because they decrease stress hormones. So burn patients heal better, right? They actually found that people with cancer, autoimmune disorders, those types of things, they begin to get well because those hormones actually begin to settle down because those autoimmune reactions begin to settle down. The other thing is diaphragmatic breathing. In fact, Chloe was having some anxiety recently and I got her on BrainFit Life, our online program and portal. And I took her to a game we have online called My Calm Beat that just teaches her to breathe at about 5.5 breaths per minute.

And if you can just slow your breathing- And belly breathe. And breathe more with your belly, more diaphragmatically, that it actually has an immediate anti-stress response in your body and can really help with sleep. Also on BrainFit Life, something you use a lot, something I use a lot, are there six hypnosis audios. There's one for sleep, one for pain, one for weight, one for anxiety, one for peak peak performance and hypnosis is so powerful love it to in fact the one for peak performance on brain fit life is one i did for you when you were testing for my my first black belt your first black belt and people love that. It's really helpful. I just got a testimonial about how important the hypnosis audios are. Hypnosis is just so powerful.

So powerful. And when I first learned how to do it for patients, one patient, his Parkinsonian tremor went away. Another one, his heart arrhythmia went away. I used it all the time for procedures. And medical hypnosis is amazing. So where your focus goes, your energy flows, and it's very powerful. So meditation, diaphragmatic breathing, hypnosis, very powerful tools. Acupuncture. Acupuncture, especially for pain.

Right. And so opiates, like heroin, decrease blood flow to the brain and decrease pain. Although what's really interesting to me about opiates is they decrease pain in the short run. They actually increase pain in the long run. There's a new study where they looked at white blood cells in the spinal cord. They would give the rats heroin. And even though it settled down their bodies and settled down their pain, it made the white blood cells go crazy. That's interesting. And so short-term benefit, long-term trouble. So whatever you can do to avoid opiates, then that's a good thing to do. Now, you have to be out of chronic pain because if you're in chronic pain, you're going to try and kill yourself because it's a serious negative situation.

But I always go, what are all the other things we can do first? And what acupuncture has been shown is it decreases pain, but it increases blood flow to the brain. And so I actually do experience chronic pain because of my scoliosis. So I have scoliosis and I love to practice martial arts. Probably not- Like beating things up even though you have chronic pain. I do, I love hitting things.

It's like the best therapy on the planet. Now, how does that make any sense? Because it's good therapy and I love it. But anyways, probably not the best combination, but- Does she listen to her doctor? No. Sorry. I'm not going to comment on that but anyways um so um what'd you say i'm a psychiatrist dream actually sometimes i'm a psychiatrist nightmare but anyways um so i do experience chronic pain in my back because of the scoliosis and for me

it does affect my sleep it affects my sleep a lot sometimes but what works for me besides the meditation you know some this is some people love it some people don't just like acupuncture chiropractor my chiropractor like literally changes my life I go in and it just relieves the pain almost instantly and it's more than just that pain in that spot. It's like this whole energy release thing. I can't really explain it. So between that and the meditation and prayer and stretching, I'm able to manage the chronic pain. I have to go regularly. You don't go once and expect it to go away. It's a hygiene thing. So there are also supplements that can help. And we have a whole group at BrainMD Health. For pain, my favorite supplements and what we often used with the NFL players that we saw, many of them had chronic pain, were SAMe, capital S, capital A, capital M, little e,

S-adenosylmethionine, has been shown to help with mood issues, but also with pain. Doesn't it also help a little bit with focus? It can help with focus. Yeah. And omega-3 fatty acids, and often higher doses of omega-3 fatty acids. Yeah, I take high dose.

Because they decrease inflammation. So I take five grams a day um for sleep we like magnesium lots of magnesium melatonin um and for anxiety there's so many things to try theanine from green tea um gaba which i really like a lot. Ashwagandha, brand new study on Ashwagandha shown it helped decrease obsessive compulsive disorder, one of the anxiety disorders. Also, holy basil, which is an adaptogen and has evidence it can decrease anxiety. So there are so many alternatives to smoking pot. I want to touch really quick on that sleep issue before we end really quickly because it's such a big issue for people who smoke pot.

So I have a lot of trouble sleeping because of the thyroid issue and the pain sometimes and things like that. So you touched on the magnesium. I just want to really push on that a little bit. So I take about 400 milligrams of magnesium glycinate before bed along. I only have to take about 1.5 milligrams of a time release melatonin. So I'm partial. I really like the one we make because it's time released. And so I don't wake up in the middle of the night. But you can take three milligrams. People love restful sleep.

Right. And you can take three milligrams safely if you need to, whatever. It's actually good for you because it's a very, very powerful antioxidant. So there's not a problem with it. It's not like sleeping pills, which are actually going to negatively impact you. So there's a lot of things you can do. You just have to play with your cocktail. I also use tea. Okay. So I do the, they're called bedtime teas or nighty night teas. Bam. I can't drive. I mean, literally, I can't drive after I do that cocktail. As well. So on BrainMD Health, we have SAMe,

we have Omega-3 Power, highly concentrated, highest quality fish oil. We also have Everyday Stress Relief that people love a lot that's got Rolora in it and Holy Basil. We also have GABA Calming with GABA in it. I just want you to know that there are other options than doing something that potentially could hurt a developing brain or hurt your brain. Here on the Brain Warriors Way, we want you to be armed, prepared, and aware to win the fight for your brain's health because your brain runs

everything you do. Stay with us. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. We have a special gift for you. It's an opportunity to win an evaluation at the Amen Clinics. All you have to do is subscribe to this podcast, leave a review, and rate us on iTunes. To learn more about Amen Clinics and the work we do, go to amenclinics.com. You can also learn about our nutraceutical products at brainmdhealth.com.

Thanks for listening.