Change Your Brain Every Day - Motherhood On The Brain with Dr. Darria Gillespie

Episode Date: February 18, 2019

As wonderful as becoming a mother can be, it often comes at the expense of our health in the form of weight gain, fatigue, and exhaustion. So what’s going on in the brain to cause these changes? In the first episode of a series on motherhood, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen are joined by author and TV personality Dr. Darria Gillespie for a discussion on the ways motherhood can impact your health.

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 Mom Week.

I am so excited about this. Hey, moms. My friend, Dr. Daria Long-Gillespie, is going to spend the week with us. Couldn't be more excited. We first met together when we both worked for Sharecare. And Sharecare is an awesome online platform for health. And Daria wrote to me and said, hey, I have a new book coming out February 19th. It's called Mom Hacks, 100 Plus science-backed shortcuts to reclaim your body and your brain, raise awesome kids and be unstoppable. I wish that was out 15 and a half years ago.

Well, she's going to give you some tips to help you survive. So a little bit about Daria. She earned her medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. Her residency in emergency medicine, actually fairly rare for a woman at Yale. Her MBA from Harvard Business School. After residency, she joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School, where she worked in the ER at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. She's a practicing ER physician, currently works as a clinical assistant professor at the University of Tennessee School of Medicine, formerly on the faculty at Harvard. She's on television a lot.

She's a national spokesperson for the American College of Emergency Physicians. And she's passionate about teaching other people, especially moms, on how to be healthy. I have a question, Daria, Dr. Daria. You're a serious superstar out there. And how much of that prepared you for being a mom? How much of that?

Well, that's a really good question. Does anything really prepare you for being a mom? Except being a mom. Exactly. I think they say the only perfect parents are the ones who haven't had children yet. Right, exactly. Oh, you know, I always say never trust a child psychiatrist who doesn't have children. Right.

Who hasn't at least thought of throwing them out the window. Now, if they actually threw them out the window, don't trust them either. There's boundaries there. There are boundaries. All right. So let's jump in and talk about what motherhood does to the brain. Oh, dear. Yes, absolutely. And both of you can speak to this, but it's, I know all of us, when we have children, we feel differently, but it was really

eyeopening to know our brains are straight, are changing. They're structurally and functionally changing as you both well know. Yeah. I remember feeling like I had pregnancy dementia, but the problem was it didn't feel like it got better after I had a baby. So, so I mean, it was just, I was so, I used to like, feel like I had it all together and I had this, these really cool, this really cool job. And, and all of a sudden I couldn't like, just put it all. I just couldn't get it together in the mornings. I would lose my keys and I'm just like running around. I felt flustered all the time. So what does progesterone do to the brain? Isn't that the big flood? You get this blood of progesterone during pregnancy, which we often say is the brain's natural valium. It sort of

settles people down. I don't like being settled down. You don't do well when you're settled down. I love this. I love this dynamic here. But you're right. And that's, to take it back, even just a step emotionally as to why I wrote the book is I had this feeling, as you said, Daniel, I'm an ER doctor. In the ER, I can stand there and I can know that whatever comes through those double doors, I've got this. I can handle it. But then I became a patient myself. I developed arthritis

in residency. And then I became a mom. And all of a sudden, in my own health, I was like, wait, I'm especially looking at my friends and my patients who are moms, I felt like we all, I don't got this. So I was like, well, what can I do? How can I take the skills I've learned in the ER and the resources I have access to, to take that mindset and bring that into my daily life? So I have that, I've got this feeling again as a mom and I can share that with people. I love that. I'm so resonating with you right now. I'm, I worked, I was a nurse in a level A trauma center and you, I didn't feel like I had it at all when I first started there, but over time you feel like, okay, I can handle whatever trauma comes through just because you just know, even when you can't handle it, you're going to handle it. Right. But then I became a mom and I just felt like I wanted to break down every single day. So I just am completely resonating with what you're saying right now. It's crazy. And Daria, in this podcast, so we are the Brain Warriors Way podcast because we believe that you're in a war for the health of your brain and your body. And

you're in a war for the health of your children. When Pizza Hut can come to my niece's middle school every week and deliver lunch, it's a war we're actually losing. Yes. So talk to us about what moms can do to optimize the physical functioning of both their brains and their bodies. Yes, we get it's changing, but what can we do to sort of counteract that? Well, physically, as you know, and as you just said, we are what we eat. And we've learned even more and more about the nutrition and what we take in and how that diet, the Western American diet, how it's at a much higher risk of depression and other sorts of psychiatric symptoms and conditions. So we know that we know that what we eat makes a difference,

high processed foods, high sugary foods, things like that, and high saturated fats. But then we also have to think about, especially for mom's sleep. And I know that y'all know very well, the importance of that for our mental health. I mean, I remember being in residency and this is where I learned that the CIA will never hire me because I would have given nuclear secrets away to get some sleep. I had gotten, I'd been up for 36 hours and at the end of it, something happened. I think my coffee spilled a drop. It was something minuscule and I started falling. I was crying and I was talking,ule. And I started bawling. I was crying. And I was like, I don't know why I'm crying.

And my residency director said, sleep deprivation is a form of torture. You are crying because you are exhausted. And so I would remember that. When I started to go crazy as a new mom, I was like, okay, it's not me that I'm going crazy. I am just exhausted. And so that's what I tried to also share with moms. I love that. And that is actually not just for women. It's also for men. I remember when I was a resident, it was earlier than you. They could keep us up for days. There was like no laws against

that. And I'm up 36 hours and I'm completely freaked out. I'm going to kill somebody. It's like, you do not want me in charge of anybody. We had two residents collapse on our floor. Collapsed. I'm not surprised. I am not surprised. And so you have your usual body and then you're pregnant. And I can't.

It feels like a disease process. I have five sisters and three daughters and 14 nieces. So I can imagine a little bit. But just the changes that go on in your body, it must make sleeping just really hard anyways. If somebody's kicking you from the inside. I mean, you know, as you sleep with me and I kick you from the outside. I actually have to say, I actually loved being pregnant. I actually felt really good when I was pregnant, which I know is unusual for a lot of people.

I worked out every day when I was pregnant. I actually felt really good when I was pregnant, which I know is unusual for a lot of people. I worked out every day when I was pregnant and I had an autoimmune issue that according to my doctor sort of shuts off when you're pregnant. So I didn't understand why I actually felt good when I was pregnant. And apparently that's why. You actually felt that. That can happen. Weird. That's rare. So, but, but I know that the sleep issue was hard because you're just so big and you have to get up and go to the bathroom every hour. We have to pee every three minutes. Oh, my God. It was just like, how am I going to do this?

So are there any practical tips for pregnant women on how to actually take really good care of themselves? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think exercising every day for me was really helpful. I didn't overdo it. You can't overdo it. But I mean, for me, that really helpful. I didn't overdo it. You can't overdo it. But I mean, for me, that was helpful. You and then speak to it.

Absolutely. That exercising is my little magic pill to keep me sane. Yeah. When people say, how do you exercise and do all these things? Well, exercise is why I can do this. It's medicine. Yeah, it really is. So I think, especially in pregnancy, when we're taking less medications, you don't want to be having to take sleeping pills or things like that. So exercise. Another thing I tell people, your circadian rhythm and melatonin, people are often taking melatonin supplements, but then they're up at 10pm looking at their iPhone. It's like, well, you're killing, you're suppressing your melatonin right there. Why don't you just put away the device or wear some blue blockers or dim the lights?

Let your brain produce melatonin like it's supposed to. And people find a big difference. So the other flip side of that is, so I decrease light at night. And I really did this when I was pregnant because I had trouble sleeping when I was pregnant. First thing I do in the morning, I get that bright light heavy dose of that. It stops my melatonin production and also kind of resets your clock. So you can also fall asleep earlier that night and wake up earlier this morning.

Right. So the two most important takeaways in this first podcast or diet, we should dive into that more because whatever you eat, the baby is getting nourished by or poisoned by. You're not eating for you. And now we know about epigenetics. Our podcasters know we have now a seven-month-old granddaughter, Haven, who's super cute. But when Haven was born, when actually both of you were born,

you were born with all of the eggs you'll ever have. And so it's not just about the baby. It's about generations of the baby. One thing that helped me, actually my doctor kept telling me, stop reading textbooks because it was making me a little neurotic. But understanding sort of the developmental process of what was going on inside my body, because for me, that really like nailed and solidified why I needed to eat certain things and take my vitamins and, and why the nutrients were so important because, you know, at this stage, you know, um, the brain is developing and this is happening.

That's why for me, it was so critical. Cause I'm like, Oh, I'm not this. I'm not eating for me right now. I'm eating so that I have a healthy baby. Like this is critical at this time to do this. And in your cookbook, the brain warriors way cookbook, there are incredibly nutritious recipes that are also delicious, right? I mean, one of our messages is there is no suffering in getting well. Do you have recipes as well, Daria, or is it more- Absolutely. And I talk about forget dieting because dieting actually does increase your cortisol levels. It makes you miserable. Forget it.

First time letters in the word diet are die. Yeah, exactly. So no, we talk. I really tell people I have a couple of favorite nutritional lifestyles, Mediterranean, Okinawan, vegan, and mix those up as you like it. Fat is good. Whole foods are good. You don't have to count calories and go crazy.

And you can really enjoy it. So I have a bunch of recipes. Mine are things you can do in seven minutes or less. So really easy ways, like 10 different ways to cook vegetables in there from blanching to roasting. And some really easy things like my favorite ways to make some salads, what I call my longevity salad. And other easy ways. So let's talk about practical things when we come back. easy things like my favorite ways to make some salads, what I call my longevity salad and other easy ways. So let's talk about practical things when we come back. So when we come back, we're going to stick with mothers and mom hacks. And what, what I would love for us to do is what are

the little tiny habits, the quick things you can do to be healthy. Stay with us. Love it. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com.

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