Change Your Brain Every Day - Quarantine Fatigue: Use These Strategies to Fight the COVID Blues

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

Quarantine fatigue, family stress, and political/social division are leading to skyrocketing rates of depression in the United States. And with all the stress in our lives it can be all too easy to ignore the warning signs and leave your depression unchecked. Fortunately, there are simple things you can do to counteract those COVID blues. In this episode, the Amens give you strategies for getting your mood back on the right track to feel and function better now. 

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're talking about depression during the pandemic, how to know if you have it, what are strategies to cure it. In the last episode, we talked about

what are the signs and symptoms? Sometimes they're more obscure than you might think. How do you know when to be concerned? Also, caregivers, when do caregivers, what's the sign that you are just taking on too much? But in this episode, we're going to talk about what you can do. What are the strategies you can do to take control of your life again right now? But you have something you want to read. Well, whenever you learn in these podcasts, please write it down and then take a picture of it and post it on any of your social media sites and hashtag Brain Warriors Way podcast. Or go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. Leave us comments, questions, reviews. We are grateful.

In fact, that's our antidepressant. And so we're going to read a review from LH40. And this is why we do it, to make a difference in your life. Wow, I'm a single mom and these podcasts have helped me so much understand myself, my 14-year-old daughter, who is also a brain cancer survivor, and I have a 10-year-old that struggles with anxiety and ADHD. These podcasts are amazing. Dr. Amen, his wife, and their guests have helped me understand so much. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. God bless you abundantly. I love that. Yeah, no, that's what makes us feel good.

And there's actually a treatment for depression called interpersonal psychotherapy, which is basically teaching other people how to get along better because the more you and I get along, the better each of us feel. If you struggle with one of your kids, with your partner, with the people at work, it just isn't down. Learning how to be empowered in relationships, how to notice what you like more than what you don't like is just incredibly helpful. So treatment strategies. And when we gave away your book, The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook. It's actually a treatment strategy for depression. Yep. So in our house, and it's really interesting because everyone thinks, oh, you know, not

everyone. A lot of people think that there's like one way to eat and it fits everybody. And the truth is there are principles and ways to eat that pretty much everybody like getting rid of trans fat. That's a principle pretty much everybody should follow. We know that trans fat goes into your cells and it never leaves not ever. So and it's very toxic and cause aggressive behavior. minimizing sugar 100% that's something that everybody should do. If you want to be really vibrantly healthy, but the same food doesn't affect everybody the same way. So for example, I got a little lazy during the pandemic

because of the same reasons we talked about with everybody else. It's like, I was so stressed, so busy trying to take care of so many people that it was just like, oh, I'm just, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to have rice today. And for some people, rice, like brown rice might be great or sweet potatoes might be great.

But I know that for me, having even complex carbs, but like sweet potatoes and rice, I can't have very many of them. I don't feel as good. I do really, really well mentally, physically on a sort of a paleo style keto type of program where it's like high fat, high protein, high fiber, but really almost like no sugar, even in the form of fruit. I always have done, but not everyone in my house does well with that. We've got a couple of kids with busy brains. And if they've got busy brains, they need those smart carbs, like sweet potatoes, brown rice, things like that,

that really help them to quinoa. Those types of things help them settle down that busy brain. My brain is sleepy. So I feel overwhelmed sometimes. And that and for me, those eliminating those foods and increasing fat and protein boost my energy and my focus. So it's really important to know and in the brain warriors way we talk about that the cookbook makes it pretty simple. But all you have to do so we and people are like, well, you've got two different diets now in the same house. No, we don't. We, we eat the same things.

So last night made fish and broccoli. Yeah. Super. It literally took me 20 minutes. Cause we do everything simple. When you're eating healthy, you don't have to do a lot of sauces and things. So fish and broccoli, everybody gets that for the kids. You make sweet potatoes or brown rice or whatever.

For me, I don't, I just have extra of the other stuff. So the first strategy to manage your depression is you have to eat, right? And the Brain Warriors Way cookbook is just perfect for that. Basically, eliminate processed foods, colorful fruits and vegetables. In fact, there is a linear correlation between the number of fruits and vegetables you eat a day and your level of happiness up to eight, right? If you get to 15, probably not going to be any better than eight, but really think about how can I get colorful fruits and vegetables into my diet and more vegetables than fruit, because as you said, because of the sugar.

And for kids, you know, a little bit of fruit is fine if they're running around. Right now they're not. But you can still get that colorful. I still eat some bell pepper. I eat a lot of greens, a little bit of berries, but not a lot. And so if you're doing a keto style like me, you can still get that color in your diet. You just need to minimize the fruit. Exercise, so important. When you don't work out, you're just not that nice. No, it's hard. It's really hard for me. I learned to use exercise as medicine when i was a kid

you did and i think it treated your depression and it's it's interesting um our daughter her boyfriend is the same way he plays like four hours of tennis a day and quarantine really affected him because he couldn't play tennis um so exercise is just critical certain supplements though before I go to medication I use saffron you know we have happy saffron now that not only has saffron it has curcumens and zinc 21 randomized controlled trials showing it helps to boost mood. And this is interesting. I was feeling super stressed and I never was, I never would try taking GABA because I had tried 5-HTP, which for my brain makes me a little bit, I feel a little high.

And you kind of like me when I take it. I don't really like me when I take it because I like to be intense. I like it because you don't worry as much. But I like to be intense. But I did take GABA and GABA- Do you know what your intensity is to my seahorses? To my hippocampus? They just get scared and they shrink. But I can't do what I need to do if I'm high. But you want to be taking care of the seahorses in your partner's brain remember seahorse hippocampus uh you want to be loving to my seahorse that's so funny um so but you think it's funny my seahorses are scared well but when i took gaba

at night not during the day because it makes me sleepy it was almost like having a glass of wine well and why did you start taking gaba because Because I was so stressed. Oh, because of leg cramps. Because of leg cramps. I was so stressed out. I was like tensing. She'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming, waking me up. And I noticed I was tensing my legs and my feet. And that would cause a cramp because of the stress.

And the GABA took it away. I haven't had one. GABA coming? Yeah. GABA coming. Love it. All right, exercise supplements to support your brain, right light therapy, actually have our bright minds light therapy lamp. I'm just so thrilled about light therapy. Half an hour in the morning, don't look at it directly, about arm's length. And it's been shown to be a treatment for seasonal depression.

Saunas. An infrared sauna has been found to have antidepressant effects. If you have a sauna at home where you can go someplace and you might not be able to go someplace to get a sauna, in certain scents like lavender, peppermint, jasmine has been found to have antideressant qualities and of course kill the ants the automatic negative thoughts that steal your happiness. So I believe in mentors like a lot

like business mentors, spiritual mentors you know health mentors and so I have a spiritual mentor who I just love she's going to actually be on my afternoon show that I've been doing on social media. And she's an amazing human. But anyways, she was sort of hearing and seeing how stressed I was.

And she's like, we're going to do something. It's one thing to be grateful and like just in your head, think about how grateful you are. She's like, we're going to text each other every day what we're grateful for. And we're going to do this for 21 days straight and see what happens and immediately it started to change how I felt and then I'd find myself in the middle of the day getting like wound up again and I would just be about to like explode because I was just so frustrated over something and I get I get a text from her about gratitude and I'm like how can you stay mad you know she's sending me gratitude texts or scripture how am I supposed to have this angry thought?

And it just immediately changes how you think. So find a partner. Don't just, I mean, if you don't have one, a friend you can do this with, write it down. But if you can get someone to exchange texts with every day, it'll just keep you accountable. Well, kill the ants. So we should do a whole week on ants. Kill the ant week. But whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control,

write down what you're thinking and then ask yourself, is it true? Can I absolutely know if it's true? Learning how to discipline your mind is just a critical skill we should teach to all second graders. And on Facebook Live, our 10-year-old niece and I read Captain Snout. So if you haven't gotten Captain Snout and the superpower questions up there, it would be so helpful. So what did you learn today? Depression is real. Depression has doubled since the pandemic. But there are natural ways to deal with depression. And try the natural ways first. And then if they don't work, think about medication, but we have it just so backwards in the medical practice these days.

It's just backwards, where they go to meds first and then they think about adding fish oil later. So what did you learn? Write it down, put it on a piece of paper, take a picture of it, post it on any of your social media sites, leave us a comment, question, or review. We would just be so grateful. We'll enter you into a drawing to win one of the tennis books or my books. We are here for you. Coming up, we're going to talk about Brain in the News. The brain is always in the news in a political season. Should we scan the brains of political candidates?

Yes. And then after that, we'll answer your questions. Stay with me. 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 considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain healthy supplements from BrainMD, you can use the code

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