Change Your Brain Every Day - The 5 Steps to Managing a Crisis, with Dr. Jennifer Love

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

When crisis strikes, we need to learn how to respond appropriately in order to get a grip on the situation. Thankfully, we have Dr. Jennifer Love to tell us exactly how we can do that. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Love, along with Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen, discuss the 5 steps to managing a crisis, taken from Dr. Love’s new book “When Crisis Strikes”. Dr. Love describes her wonderful analogy of the 5 fingers of the hand and explains the role each “finger” plays in coming to terms with any tough situation, so you can set yourself up for the healing that comes afterward.  For more info on Dr. Love's new book "When Crisis Strikes: 5 Steps to Heal Your Brain, Body, and Life from Chronic Stress", visit https://www.amazon.com/When-Crisis-Strikes-Chronic-Stress/dp/0806540818  

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 still here with Dr. Jennifer Love. We are so proud of her. Her new book is out, When Crisis Strikes, could not be more time appropriate. And we're talking about, oh, excellent. Thank you for showing that. We are talking about the

five steps. So we talked about the first one, which is get a grip you for showing that. Um, we are talking about the five steps. So we talked about the first one, which is get a grip. What are the other steps, Dr. Love? Yes. So I'll, I'll go through them. Maybe not as with as much depth, you know, so we're not here all day. I mean, it's, you know, a long book. Um, but as we go through, we walk people through. So we talked about how you get a grip and how you dig down and find out what's really going on. And then the second is the pointer finger and it's pinpoint what you can control because the hardest thing about crisis is we hit this point where we feel out of control and we are, it's like you wheeled into the operating room, you're going under anesthesia. And even though I'm a doctor, I'm losing control. There is this aspect of things that's overwhelming

feeling of helplessness that often comes along with these major life crises. And so the first thing our brain does is makes a whole list of all the things we have no control over because we're wired to kind of look at the alarms first. And so in step two, we train the brain to step back from the alarm of all the things we can't control and look at, well, what can we control? And then, well, what can we do about the things we can't control? And so it's not step two is not about making an enormous to-do list. It's teaching our brain that we have options. It's challenging that sense of helplessness to a dual. It's getting the brain off the siren and off onto possibility. So that's the process of, of step two.

So we walk through how to do that in that step. That is so important. I, and I mean, for the people listening, I mean, not that I am a person who needs control, but for people listening, when you, I love that you described that because okay, you can stop laughing. When we feel out of control. I mean, I know for me, when I feel out of control, I start acting a little crazy trying to grasp control. So, but I love what you said. Cause that's, that's insightful. Yes. No, I it's, it's so true. I mean, okay. i suffered for

years with it silently with an eating disorder and it was all about control it was all about trying to figure out how to manage my anxiety and you know have this perfect facade and it was so silly but you know silly is the word hard it was painful um but one thing i learned in that process and i love that you are are talking about, is focus on what you can control. Focus on what you can control. But I love that you took it a step further. And what can you do about the things you can't control? That's just, I love that.

So we have lots of examples in there, too. After the election, which I know is stressful for so many people, I was on CNN headline news and I talked about pest, post-election stress, trauma, and they cut it out. But I'm like, everybody should be saying the serenity prayer over and over and over again. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. It is such a useful strategy. And I love that you put that number two. What's number three? Well, number three is a metal finger. I'm not going to give you the middle finger, but in a sense, it's a finger of action.

We give our crisis the middle finger. I love that. We talk about getting from all the options to how do you move into action? My co-author, Dr. Hovic, um, is a specialist on the frontal lobe. And, um, you know, I have a section in there on motivation. How do we get motivated to do change? Um, long ago I did a podcast called, why don't I want to do the things I want to do? Right. You know, cause I want to be fit and look good in my jeans. But what I really want to do is eat ice cream and watch Netflix on my couch, right? We have these

internal battles on, on doing the things that seem hard. So we talk about motivation. We talk about dividing up tasks into easy actions and tough actions. And so we walk people through the process of getting going. We help people find the fire in their belly to start fighting this crisis and to feel empowered to do that. Because it's something, you know, when I hit crisis, I want to like build a blanket for it and not come out for like a week. Right. So yeah. So we give our crisis the middle finger. Yeah. It builds a pillow. Since I was four. And I think, what was that protection? It was hiding. I, it was safer to hide. So when I was four, but I just, you know, now it's just a habit comfort thing. But yeah, I love this hand analogy. Oh my gosh. No,

I feel like I would be really good at giving crisis the middle finger. I think I could do that. It's, it's empowering. Yeah. He's so Zen, but I'm not, I'm a fighter. So that's just, I like that. That's just that. Well, this is why we wrote this book together because we have different personalities and, and Dr. Hobick is so interesting. He used to be a PGA golf player. He's done coaching, um, psychological coaching for like the Norwegian ski jumpers, you know, but there are times in crisis when those of us who are soft have to be loud and strong. And there are those of us who

go through life loud and strong that will need to be soft. And that's actually step four. That's our ring finger, right? Because this is personal. Our ring finger is, um, it's a softness. It's not a finger of strength. We researched all the fingers by the way, like really weird stuff online. Like if you had to have one finger get cut off, which would it be? Um, like all that kind of weird stuff. It's not, it's not your pinky, by the way, everyone chooses pinky. That's not right. The step four is called pull back. And it's a time of reflection and simplification. And we walk people through this process of now that you're doing all these things, your actions, what are, what do you want your focus to be on? What do you value? How do you put that in front of you?

Which relationships are healthy in your life and which are toxic? And, you know, what, how can you simplify your life without feeling guilty? What are the things you can do on a day-to-day basis that are going to improve your life moving forward. And so this is what I consider a more introspective and gentle step. And some people struggle with this more than others. But again, we just kind of walk you through that process and how to do that piece by piece. Because you want to come out of this crisis, a more kind of grounded you, you know, you want to kind of come away with that, knowing who you are, knowing what you value because

crisis distracts us from that. Yeah. Those alarms are sounding. We go into survival mode and we sometimes lose the essence of who we want to be or who we used to see ourselves being. He's this is, he's so good at this. He's really good at like stopping and grounding. And I'm like always a fighter, but he's really good at like, so I've, I've, you've helped me learn some of that. And when I start to get a little over the top, like if he needs someone to like fight certain things, it's he's like yeah go ahead honey but when I need to ground it's like I I know that that's a super vital but we are so good together we're so yin and yang um and yet you when you do need to fight you just fight differently. I remember in March when this whole thing happened and one of our young employees, a COVID and was on a ventilator. Remember that six weeks on a

ventilator and we had to close our Manhattan clinic and everybody was freaking out and um i thought to myself am i going to be proud of how i act in september that when you're in the crisis it's it's like get out of the moment and into all of the moments it's just so helpful so helpful jennifer know, what's so interesting is people can do the steps individually. They can also do them as partners or even as a family. We have a lot of examples in the book. So you can do it together or alone or even with a therapist. I love that. And we come back, we're going to talk about step five. And I have another thought on the ring finger as well that I want to talk about. Because, you know, when I think of the ring finger, I think of you.

Right. And I think of our family, you know, because I wear my wedding ring. I instantly felt grateful for. On my ring finger and it's how do you activate your support networks when you're in a crisis because often a crisis will bring out the worst yeah in the people you care about so anyways what did you learn? Give crisis the middle finger. Love that. So many things I love that we're having this conversation with Dr. Jennifer Love, who's a psychiatrist, who has a specialty in addiction medicine that we have to talk about her new book, When Crisis Strikes Out, December 29th.

You will love it. You will love her. She's a master clinician and communicator. How can they find you online, Jennifer? So I'm on Instagram. There's a lot of Jennifer loves, so it's a little complicated to add. Doctor underscore author underscore Jennifer underscore love.

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