Change Your Brain Every Day - Is it Smart to Follow Your Gut?

Episode Date: September 24, 2019

In the previous episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discussed the brain functions involved in judgement, particularly from a negative point of view. However, there are many instances in which judgement is crucial, whether in social situations or for safety reasons. But should you always listen to your gut? Learn the difference between judgement for discernment or discrimination, and positive thinking vs. accurate thinking.

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 back. We are talking about judgment this week. And the last episode, we talked about judgment in the brain. But in this episode, I actually

want to talk about judgment, why we have it and how it actually can serve you because it's not all bad or we wouldn't be able to do it, as a species we've we we have this ability to judge so there's a side of judgment that is discernment and then there's the part of judgment where it goes too far like we talked about in the last episode where it becomes destructive judgment for discernment is very different than judgment when it comes to being very harsh about an entire group of people. So judgment for discernment means, hmm, should I go that direction? That person over there, is that safe for me to go? You see, you know, you see a group of men and you're a woman and it's dark and it's an alley. Should I go that direction? That's discernment. There's a big difference there. And I also want

to talk about one thing. So often women are taught, oh, don't be judgmental. Be nice, be kind, be sweet, be polite. That's not always a good thing. So this idea that we shouldn't be judgmental at all, especially where discernment is involved. So often I just, I want to throw this out there to you. And I'd love for you to answer this question. How many times did you not listen to that judgment, that voice inside your head that said, I should not do this, or I should do this thing. And you did or did not do that thing. You went against your internal judgment and it got you in trouble. So one thing I've taught my daughter since she was really young is listen to the voice inside. If it means you're not polite to someone that you think is a problem,

then risk being impolite and apologize later if you have to. You don't need to go extreme, but listen to that voice inside. If you're reading cues that say this isn't a good thing for me, I don't like the idea. Which is a brain function. Right. I don't like the idea. It's usually a right hemisphere function. That we just throw judgment out the window, right? We have the ability- Which is a brain function. Right. I don't like the idea- It's usually a right hemisphere function.

That we just throw judgment out the window, right? We have the ability to judge for a reason. Well, so let me reinforce that because I actually really agree with you on this. I am, actually you and I together are going to be able to train the Newport Beach Police Department on brain health. Right. And as I was talking to the chief there, we were talking about killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts.

He made it clear to me they need to be suspicious in certain situations. And so if they're on the street, so the first thing is to protect the community. And so if they notice something that's different, that's not right, that's just off, that their first instinct is to be suspicious and to play out all the scenarios. Now, you have often criticized me as saying I have Mickey and Minnie. Mickey and Minnie in your head doing the waltz. It's the happiest place on earth. You are the least judgmental person I know.

Right. But I'm also, I spent 10 years on active duty in the army. And so I understand the mind of a warfighter where they have to be cautious. And why do we call our podcast The Brain Warrior's Way? Because it's not Mickeykey and minnie out there you need to be armed prepared and aware to win the fight of your life because quite frankly and we've been beginning to talk about the evil ruler um it's dangerous with technology and food. And so having a healthy dose of suspicion. Yes.

And you've never heard me say I'm a fan of positive thinking. I'm a fan of accurate thinking. And so judgment can be good or bad. And if you find yourself at the extremes, you have to ask yourself why. Could there be brain issues involved in that? But that doesn't mean you lose your anxiety because in a large-scale study from Stanford, the don't worry, be happy people died the earliest from accidents and preventable illnesses. Yeah, I agree with you. So I think the point is, when we talk about judgment, the question is, is this helpful in my life and in my family and to the people around me, or is it not? Because the type of judgment I'm talking about right now is the type of judgment that could save your life.

And if you're wrong, it's okay. So be kind with yourself. But as someone who was attacked at 15, I will never forget that I had the thought right before I was attacked, this is a big white guy in a suit. What's he gonna do to me? He's not gonna do anything to me.

That was a poor judgment on my part. I wasn't suspicious of someone, even though all the signs were there. That was a dumb thought. So I will never again have that, like, have that thought, or nor did I train my daughter to have those thoughts. You don't judge based on those societal cues that you're taught. You judge based on how is the person behaving, right? That's actually why I don't wear a suit. So you don't connect me to that criminal.

So I have that mindset of a police officer. I understand that being suspicious. I'm always looking over my shoulder ever since then. Well, and it's interesting because sometimes we're suspicious and we don't know why, or we can't articulate why. And part of the neuroscience reason, it's sort of a conflict between the left side of your brain, which is the happy side of your brain that doesn't see problems. And it moves you towards situations, it's in conflict with the right side of your brain, which tends to see problems. And the right side also puts together lots of different components at once, but it doesn't have language. So it can't explain why you feel anxious in a situation. And so being able to connect the left and right sides of the brain is a very important skill, which is why you want to help your brain be healthy.

Well, and there's a really good book. I love this book. I've given it to so many young girls. It's called The Gift of Fear. And it's a really interesting book. He talks a lot about this topic and what we call intuition. And he talks a lot about how oftentimes that intuition you're feeling is that your brain process is way faster than you think it does, faster than you can put together why you're scared. It took in so many details so quickly, you just don't really understand because it was too fast for you to really put it together. So that feels like intuition.

It feels like a feeling when, in fact, it was actually stuff that your brain took in quickly. So don't ignore it. Well, and when we met with the police officer, he said that the average response time was 1.5 seconds. To even register. But when you get anxious, it can actually go up to four seconds.5 seconds. To even register. But when you get anxious, it can actually go up to four seconds. Four seconds. And that's what a lot of people in dangerous situations, they often freeze,

especially if they're anxious. But you brought up the brain warrior's way. And that's one of the reasons I train, right? We train because you can decrease that reaction time by training. He said athletes, you can't decrease it completely, but you can decrease it down to just over a second by training regularly, the stress response time. And that's what we want you to do. We want you to be armed, prepared, I'm totally judgmental on this podcast when I think about the bad food that they serve at church, at work, at hospitals, to children. And I'm okay with that. And the front part of my brain doesn't work too hard. I'm just seeing what is happening in our society. And so judgment isn't necessarily good or bad, but you just want to ask yourself, does it serve you or does it in fact hurt you? And if you don't know how your brain works,

you obviously can come to one of the eight Amen clinics and we'd be happy to look and see it and work on balancing it with you. I hear you're getting a scan. I am. I'm going to 10 years later, I'm going to get a scan. So this will be her third scan and we'll see if it's continuing to be as beautiful as she is. Because, you know, the question becomes, how, how do you know unless you look? So the last thing I want to add about this, because we're talking about judgment in different situations. If it's about people and it's not helpful, then the one thing I love is the work. We talk about the four questions and it's so helpful. Byron Katie has these worksheets called judge your neighbor worksheets, and it really helps you. Byron Katie has these worksheets called Judge Your Neighbor worksheets,

and it really helps you work through your judgment so that you end up in the end flipping it around to yourself. You go to the opposite. So that person's a jerk. Well, I'm a jerk. Yeah, I can be a jerk sometimes. It sort of instantly cracks that thought, right? I'm a jerk when I call that person a jerk, right? So it just cracks the thought and it eliminates that immediate pressure that you feel when you think those thoughts. And it's called judge your neighbor worksheet. So if you're having thoughts that are not helpful to you, those worksheets can be very helpful. And you can get those. You can actually download them for free at the work, the work.com. And we talk about it in all of our books. There's a whole section on this in Feel Better Fast and Make It Last. All right. When we come back, we have a new segment we're going to roll out called Brain in

the News, where we're going to go through important neuroscience, but practical neuroscience articles that came out in the last couple of weeks. If you want to enter the free drawing for Tana's cookbook, she'll sign it to you. It's amazing. We've been eating out of it more recently, which makes me so happy. But you can go to Apple Podcasts and leave a review for The Brain Warrior's Way, or you can go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. If you leave a review or ask us a question, we will enter you into the book raffle. Stay with us. If you're enjoying The Brain Warrior's Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode.

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