Change Your Brain Every Day - Self Image: How to Change Your Thinking to Love Your Body Every Day

Episode Date: August 7, 2018

When social media apps like Instagram present a perfectly edited snapshot of life, it’s hard not to compare ourselves and our bodies to an over-idealized standard. In the first episode on a series called “Love Your Body Week,” Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen talk body image issues, and then give you a certain method of self-talk can leave you feeling much better about who you are and how you look.

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. Welcome, everybody. We're going to call this week Love Your Body Week. For some people, that's hard. Well, it's really hard if you're a shrimp like I am. So, I mean, that was sort of an issue my whole life. But that's the misconception.

People think that if you are this or if you are that, it's harder to love your body. That's not true. Some of the people who are the hardest on themselves are attractive women. So, because they're just, they're so over-focused on every single detail. Why are you staring at me? Because you're beautiful. Why would you ever? Although it's hysterical.

When Tana and I first met, I took her to a conference of a friend of mine, Byron Katie. And there were like 300 people in this tent. And Katie was talking about body image. And she had everyone write down their thoughts about their body. It was wild. And I didn't know what Tana wrote. And someone who was in the back, who was probably 300 pounds, And much older than I was.

Just started talking about how much she hated her body. And why don't you tell the story? So what was so wild to me, there's no way at that time in my life, there's no way I was going to get up and share. And yes, I had a lot of body image issues growing up and through various times in my life, like probably most women. But it was pretty significant at that time. And so I wrote a bunch of stuff because it was the exercise and I wanted to participate. And you know, if you can deal with something, deal with it. But I'm laying down and I'm not really looking at anyone. I was up in the front with you. And all of a sudden I hear this woman start to talk and I can tell by her voice that she's significantly older than I was. And so I turn around and what made me turn around though, was that her list was virtually identical to mine.

I'm like, what is going on? When I turned around, she was much older and she was very obese. And I was like, I'm so confused. Like her list is identical to mine. And she suffered from all the same thoughts, all the same everything. And that was so eye-opening for me. But the really wild part was I loved when Byron Katie said, and the woman was really in a lot of pain

because her husband had left her for someone young and beautiful. And so her idea became that she needed to be, look younger and be thinner and be beautiful in order to get her, get a man, get her husband back or get a different man or whatever, but that's what men wanted and so that's what she needed to be. And so Byron Katie said, so get a man, get her husband back or get a different man or whatever, but that's what men wanted. And so that's what she needed to be. And so Byron Katie said, so wait a minute, you don't

want to do that because you want to be healthy. You want to be thin and beautiful and young so you can manipulate men. And it was just so eyeopening. And, but the part that was the most wild for me is, and I couldn't help myself. At that time, I never would speak in public. That was just not my thing. But I stood up and I'm like, wait, I'm sorry. I'm a size two. And what you're saying, your list is virtually identical to mine. I'm younger than you are. And oh, by the way, I have news for you. My marriage still fell apart. So we have the same problems. We have the same problems, the the way, I have news for you. My marriage still fell apart. So we have the same problems. We have the same problems, the same thoughts, the same, pretty much the whole thing was the same.

And it was pretty crazy. And that's when it struck me. This is not an external problem. This is an internal problem. So, you know, who's considered probably the most iconic, beautiful woman of the last century killed herself. Marilyn Monroe. I know Marilyn Monroe. Right. And she was curvaceous.

She would have been chunky by our standards today. Yeah, but there's still a lot of guys that like how she looked. Absolutely. Right. She was gorgeous. So the Twiggy thing often doesn't work for a lot of people. It's not realistic. And it's not healthy.

No. Being too thin is equally unhealthy as being overweight. So how do we get people listening to begin to assess their feelings about their body and love their body. So I really like- Because we call this love your body week. And according to one study I read, 93% of girls hate their bodies. Oh, yeah.

Oh, no. And by nine years old, a study done in South Carolina, they said that by nine years old, most girls had been on a diet and 10% of them had tried vomiting. That's just crazy. So, but I mean, we always look at it from four circles. It's not always just psychological.

Sometimes there's hormonal imbalances, certainly puberty. All these studies in front of me show that puberty, they all say the same thing. Puberty is when it peaks. Puberty is when it peaks. Puberty is when it's the hardest, especially for girls. It happens for boys too, but it's worse for girls. And that's when body shaming really starts and girls are vicious at that age.

And now we have this whole new thing. There's one study here I love. It says Instagram is the worst social media app for young people's mental health. And it's- Why is that? Because there are so many, all the pictures are perfect. All the pictures are perfect.

There are so many models on there. Even the food is perfect. Everything on there, you post it because it's perfect, right? You want to post these really cool pictures. You're trying to get a following. And so these girls are all comparing themselves. And I know Chloe started, she came home one day when she was in seventh grade and she was really started struggling. And that was the first I had seen that of her. Um, she came home and she

was just like really struggling cause she was, you know, coming into puberty. And as usually happens, girls put on a little bit of weight during that time, which is what happens when you're trying to create hormones. Um, when your body's trying to like change hormonally. And so she was pretty freaked out by it. And so we had a long talk and fortunately, sadly, but I guess for her sake, good, I have a lot of experience in body image issues. So I really sat down and I just had a brutally honest talk

with her about this. And she immediately started comparing herself to other people, immediately. And that's what Instagram does. She was comparing herself. And I said, sweetheart, I just, we need to like really help you understand something very clearly. Supermodels don't even look like supermodels. And she was like, what are you talking about? I said, in my day, it was called airbrushing. Okay. And it was, it was not only common, it was sort of, you had to do it to make everything look perfect in your day. It's much easier. You can do it on your phone yourself.

There are apps to make yourself look thinner apps, to make yourself look prettier apps, to get rid of wrinkles apps. I mean, it's now everyone's making everything perfect. And then recently they were busted. So recently there was a big bust on all these models and all these people who looked perfect all the time. And you can actually see, because if you're really paying attention to the photos, they're distorted, where they made themselves look thinner. And so she's like, oh my God, you were right.

So one of the things, the exercises that I love, and I jump in and chime in here on this, but was the exercise that I did where we actually just were brutally honest in a mean way, the same way that, and I realized, like, I didn't even realize how meanly I talked about myself sometimes, but we wrote down everything we hate about our bodies.

And then we did the turnaround, the four questions. Is it true? Is it absolutely true? So let's teach people that, because this is so important. And I find myself in my office with patients doing it all the time when they come out with negative thoughts about their relationship, about their job or about their body. And so what's a common negative thought?

What my gosh, there are so many. Are you kidding me? I'm too fat. I'm not good enough. I'm not thin too fat i'm not good enough i'm not thin enough i'm not pretty enough i have too many wrinkles um for me one of the ones i discovered that i wasn't really that aware of until i did this exercise i had so much resentment toward my body for sort of betraying me so towards myself for betraying me and sort of ruining, you know, my whatever. I don't even know. And now, cause I'm so past that, but at the time I was really angry about it. And,

and did you have, and I actually don't know the answer to this question. So I'm going out on a limb here. Did you have resentment toward men for only wanting you for your body? You know, that was mixed. That was very mixed because I was also smart enough to know that, yes, men are automatically going to be attracted to pretty women, to women who take the time to groom themselves. They just are. I mean, we know that. That's a fact. It's an evolutionary thing.

But at the same time, women are taught to use it. So you can't just be mad. And there was a time, probably periods where I was, because I had been asked out several times by married men, husbands of people that were friends of mine, and that really irritated me. So I got really bitter and angry at one point, but then I started to realize, you know, women are taught, just like you guys are taught something very different from what we are taught. We are taught to use things a certain way.

And I really realized, like, if I'm ever going to get past this, I have to take responsibility for it. Okay. So let's go with a thought that you hate about your body. At the time that we did the exercise, I was starting to, just at that age where I was starting to get wrinkles. And it was pissing me off. I did not like it. So I'd always sort of looked younger than my age. Now, all of a sudden I'm

like, whoa, I'm starting to look my age now. Like what's going on? So what's the thought that was torturing you? I look old. I look old. Yeah. Okay. So here are the questions. I won't be pretty. I won't, you know. Write them down. Unless you're driving, then please don't write them down. Just listen to this again when you're not driving. I look old. So the first question is, is that true? And the idea behind this is not positive thinking.

So neither Tana and I are fans of positive thinking. We're fans of honest thinking. So neither Tan and I are fans of positive thinking. We're fans of honest thinking. The second question is, can you absolutely know it's true? Well, of course not, because compared to who? George Burns? I mean, who am I comparing it to? The young people listening don't know who Johnny Burns is. OK, well, he lived to be 100, OK?

I know, it just breaks my heart um okay so the first question is is true yes the second question is can i absolutely know it's true i look old compared to what so no or i don't know um the third question I love this question, is how do you feel when you believe the thought, I look old? Angry. Angry, helpless to change it because we're aging. There's nothing you can do, right? Well, there's all sorts of things, you know, as we see these terrible pictures.

But right, that opens up a whole other can of worms. And I actually thought about doing that. I actually thought about doing my eyes. But we're going to talk about that later. So you feel, how do you feel when you believe I look old? So angry, very helpless to change anything because it's going to happen whether I can control it or not. I can't control it, whether I like it or not.

So angry, helpless, resentful. And that's where the issues with men come in, I think. Because men only like young, beautiful women. So that's another thought you have to work on. Sad. Depressed. Just. Panicked.

Ugly. Panicked. So you end up doing things that maybe are not smart. I'm not talking about you. In general, people do, right? Panicked? Yeah. So I want you to pay attention for a thought that is not absolutely true.

It drives you to feel awful. And the fourth question, so the first one is, is it true? The second one, can I absolutely know it's true? The third one is, how do I feel when I believe the thought I have? The fourth one is, who would I be or how would I feel if I didn't have that thought? Yeah, this is my favorite. If I could not think that thought, some people have a hard time with this because they'll always go, but, no, you can't say but.

Who would you be if you never were able to think the thought? I would be peaceful. I would be free. I would be happy with myself. I would not care what people thought, right? I would be happy. So generally just free, happy, peaceful. Yeah, plus people aren't thinking about you

anyways. We talked about the 18, 40, 60 rule. When you're 18, you worry about what everybody thinks of you. When you're 40, you don't give a damn what anybody thinks about you. And when you're 60, you realize no one has been thinking about you at all. Right. And then after you do the four questions, the last thing you do is you turn it around to its opposite. So what's the opposite of I look old? I don't look old. I don't look old. Right.

Don't go to narcissism, which is I look beautiful. No, that's not what this answers. Although you can do that if you feel. Right. But what I try to get my patients to do is like, let's just go to the opposite. And the opposite just is like, but don't him. I don't look old. And you need to come up with truth to support that.

So they can be the tiniest. This is where people struggle too because they're like, well, but someone so said I look old. No, no, no. They can be tiny. Okay, so you looked good, you know, a month ago when you went to your sister's wedding shower or baby shower or whatever. And when you showed up, someone took a picture of you, you looked amazing. And people commented on it. Like it can be small, like that day you looked good. You felt good about yourself. Um, whatever. It can be something

small like that. Find some verification. So question the thoughts about your body and you won't be tortured as much. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do the right things for your body. But you need to come up with three turnarounds too. So the turnaround is to the opposite. I don't look old. And then this is actually not to another person because you're doing it to yourself. What else do you think? So I don't look old. You can say, you can say, I look youthful. So that would be one of them. I look youthful. And

that's where you would go, well, I do feel youthful when, like give yourself some way to support that. When do you feel young? When you're playing with your kids, when you're probably not when you're looking at Instagram. So, right. So when you're playing with your kids, when you're doing things that make you happy, when you feel satisfied with your life, somehow you probably feel more youthful. So, and that's the trap. That's why the social media has bred depression in teenage girls. Because they're constantly comparing themselves to other people. And whenever you compare yourself and you don't measure up, your self-esteem just plummets. So if I compared myself to someone and won a Nobel Prize, and because I haven't won a Nobel Prize, then that means, well, I'm no good.

Or if I was into money and I'm like, well, I'm not as rich as Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos, therefore I'm poor, right? I mean, it's insane. Because there will always be somebody better than you, whatever you're comparing it to. There will always be somebody worse than you. whatever you're comparing it to. There will always be somebody worse than you. The question is, do you love you for who you are? Well, a lot of people don't initially. Well, and that's where these questions can be so helpful. So one of the tricky parts is if you've got teenagers or you've got grandkids,

they're struggling so badly right now with this. And girls can be vicious. I mean, the whole mean girl syndrome peaks when girls are going through puberty. It's when it's the most vicious. The body shaming happens. Seventh, eighth, ninth grade. Yeah. It's bullying happens over body issues.

14 years. 14 years, 0.4. 14.4. So that's like 14 years and five months. Meanness in teenagers peaks. So that's the worst time, according to a new study. And there's several studies here that were just really interesting to me. One of them actually talks about, it's very different the way they talk about it, but

I really liked it. There's a study, it was actually posted in Science Daily, writing away the body image blues. And I like it because it's a little different than what we just did, the exercise, which I find very powerful. What they did is they wrote a letter to themselves as though it were coming from a friend who loves them, someone who adores them. And so it couldn't, you know, they're not going to write them because if they talk negatively to themselves, but they write this letter as though from the perspective of someone who adores them. And so who loves them and writing it out somehow, like the improvement was incredible. So that was one that I really liked. Um, and I, this one I really love. So if you're

older, um, or even if you're younger, body image strongly linked to overall life satisfaction, and I have certainly found that to be true. So it always has been the worst in my life when I've gone through stressful periods where I'm not feeling satisfied. So finding a way to ground yourself, that's why I love meditation and prayer so much, because finding a way to ground yourself,

and one of the exercises that I do with that and have always done with that is when I'm feeling frustrated about something physically, like when I couldn't, my energy was not working well after I had surgery recently. It just, I couldn't do what I wanted to do and you start to get frustrated and you start to like turn on yourself a little bit.

And so like my automatic thought that popped in my head is I'm just being lazy. Okay, well, how dumb is that? But I just had major surgery. Is that true? Can you absolutely know that's true? Right, it was the dumbest thought. How do you feel when you believe that thought? I torture myself and then I torture my husband. I torture everybody, yeah. So, because I hate laying in bed. Who would I be without the thought?

I hate laying in bed. I just lay in bed. But one of the things I do is I pray and I meditate and I meditate on literally I go through, I scan my body and I think my different organs. And there's something about that that I love. You are just hysterical. Why? You are just hysterical.

I'm lazy. I'm going through major surgery. So I really like that. And one of the things I really like for dealing with teenagers, especially girls that are really struggling with this going through puberty, is doing the things that we've learned as adults, which took us 40 years, but start them really young. Educate them about the truth of what's going on with Instagram. Educate them about the importance of loving their bodies and taking physical care of themselves

without becoming overly obsessed and helping them to understand, put more value on other things. So, that's what we've done with Chloe is really help her put value on other things. Does this have eternal value? And help them correct their negative thoughts because if you don't do it when they're teenagers, they will take their aunts, the automatic negative thoughts, with them into adulthood. Many of us, even 40 or 50 years later, are still carrying around the negative thoughts that popped up when we went through puberty.

It's so true. We don't even realize it. When we come back, we're going to talk about eating disorders. It's a really important topic to talk about. But we're also going to talk about how you can have the best body. I mean, I'm like totally banged. I want to be in the same size jeans I was in when I was in high school. I don't want to be overweight. And so what's the balance? But you struggled with that a little bit.

Oh, I hated it. I hated it when I couldn't be at the way I wanted. So I don't want people to get to the don't worry, be happy part of where you don't care anymore about your body. I want you to be really serious about doing the right things. And, oh, by the way, you'll be cuter. Stay with us. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com.

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