Change Your Brain Every Day - The 6 Steps to Ending Mental Illness

Episode Date: September 4, 2019

While the incidence of cancer has been experiencing a decline, the incidence of mental illness continues to trend upward. Why is this? In the third episode of a series based on Dr. Daniel Amen’s recently filmed PBS special “Change Your Brain, Heal Your Mind”, Dr. Amen outlines the 6 steps to ending mental illness, and how to take these steps to help you or your loved one get on the right track.

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 change your brain, heal your mind, aka the end of mental illness. Do you have a review?

I do. I couldn't do anything about my adult child's addiction other than finally getting out of the way and let God work. But I could step in for my granddaughter to find a way to help her combat bullying and sexual harassment. Because of life's events and the emotional abandonment of both her parents to destructive tendencies, she carried a victim mentality. I am a seeker, and using that, God brought to me the right people, Tana and Dr. Raymond being two of them to help heal my life so I can help her. That's where I found my purpose. Nancy Beer. Isn't that awesome? That just touched me because we're just talking about that with our nieces and helping when you can. And my book being The Reluctant Healer.

It's so helpful. So we've been talking about the book and the show. And step number one to ending mental illness is we have to stop calling these things mental illness. And call them what they really are, brain health issues that steal your mind. No one is shamed for cancer, diabetes, or heart disease. No one should be shamed for bipolar disorder, ADHD, depression, schizophrenia. And yet, it affects your insurance. It affects your ability, like certain jobs.

It affects so many things. So if you diagnose them with a brain health issue and and you don't write down right code now they may not get reimbursed because you have to have codes to get real you have to have diagnostic codes but when you get a diagnosis of depression it can affect your life insurance your long-term care insurance your your disability insurance, and sometimes health insurance. So no one is shamed. But if we don't fix this stigma, we're going to have continued problems. Suicide went up 33% since 1999. Well, cancer declined 27%. Why? We're working on the wrong paradigm. Seeing these things as mental rather than brain hurts people. Because mental is like, well, what is that? It's your fault.

It's vague. It's hard to define. And it sort of means, well, you should be able to snap out of it. But when you went through your period of depression because they took away your thyroid, you couldn't snap out of it. No. You would have given anything to snap out of it. Right. Instead, they made it worse. Instead, they made it worse. By putting me on the wrong medication.

Right. And in the show, I talk about Jared, who was hyperactive, restless, impulsive, aggressive, diagnosed with ADD from the time he was small. And five meds didn't work, made him worse. And when we saw him, he had the ring of fire and it's like, please don't stimulate this brain. And there's a fun part in the show where I talk about if Jared had lived in the past, how would they have treated him? From drilling a hole in his skull to release the evil spirits in ancient times, to putting him in an asylum, to sterilizing him, to putting him on Freud's couch, to giving him electric shock therapy, to the constant medication that they tried on him.

It's we can do better when we see the brain as an organ that needs to be treated. And so step number one, we've got to get rid of the term mental illness. Step number two is you need to fall in love with your brain. I mean, what a concept, right? Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem.

I've not seen one case in 40 years of being a psychiatrist. The only time I saw a case of penis envy was when I was at Broadway and it was intermission and the girls' line was like around the building. Yes. And the boys' line. Then you have penis envy. Yes, I understand. There was nobody in the boys' bathroom. No one was in the bathroom.

So unfair. So you have to fall in love with your brain. And once you fall in love with it, you treat it better. And that's just absolutely critical. Step three is preventing or treating the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And those of you that listen to the Brain Warriors Way podcast know we have a mnemonic, bright minds, and blood flow, retirement and aging, inflammation, genetics, head trauma, toxins.

You have to go after those things. So a large part of the show was that. And there's so many great stories. And step number four is first do no harm. Use the least toxic, most effective treatments. Head to head against antidepressants, exercise is equally effective. Omega-3 fatty acids have a better effect than antidepressants. Learning not to believe every stupid thing you think. Yeah. It's all common sense. It's so funny.

Do you know what's so funny? When I was at the gym, I used to work out at 4 o'clock in the morning. I mean, I used to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. I used to go to the gym by 5. And there's this whole group of people that are always there at the same time. They're like the morning people that are always there. Do you know what they all say? like we have one thing in common i don't feel normal if i don't work out first thing in the morning it's like we it's like a medicine you just feel

it so if everybody would do that when you exercise and you're not hangry. Right. So when you have a low blood sugar, I give you grace and nuts. And nuts, yes. Lots of nuts. So first, do no harm. Use the least toxic, most effective treatments. Think skills, not just pills. And I talked about how, as a society, we're nutrient deficient. Magnesium, choline, omega-3s, vitamins, B, C, D, E, potassium. Someone asked, this is such an important point, the nutrient deficiency. Someone asked at the filming, at the taping, if I eat a really clean diet, do I really have to take supplements? And it's a really good question. Here's the problem. Everyone thinks, well, I'm just going to eat clean. Well, number one, most people don't eat that clean. In this society,

they just don't. Let's be honest. Now, if you do, if you're one of those really ultra clean foodies, right? You're eating raw food. You're eating enough protein. You're eating the right balance of fat, protein, fiber. Okay. But one of the things that I brought up in that question was it's not just food that is depleting us of our nutrients. Okay. It's the environmental toxins.

It's not sleeping enough. It's stress. There's a whole, it's our nutrients. Okay? It's the environmental toxins. It's not sleeping enough. It's stress. There's a whole, it's our lifestyle in general. It's pollution. Pollution, the environmental toxins. So it's all of those things that are depleting medication, birth control, statins. Like so many different medications will deplete you of nutrients.

That's why we recommend taking that buffer. It's the thing that bridges that gap. And I also talked about the scientific evidence for things like magnesium, GABA, and theanine for anxiety, or green tea, zinc, and rhodiola for focus. In the end of mental illness, there's a whole chapter on mind meds versus nutraceuticals. What does the science say? There's 286 scientific references. This book is the best referenced book I've ever done except for Memory Rescue because both of those books have over a thousand references because I just get so irritated when people go, oh, there's no science behind his work. It's like, do you read? And then there was a really fun thing about, well, before you take medicine for anxiety, what are six other things you can do?

And at some point, that would actually be worth a whole podcast by itself. Is psychedelics on there? No. Just had to ask. Marijuana is not on there. LSD is not on there. Ketamine is not on there. Step number five was get the whole family involved. And that was just absolutely critical for Amelie and Alizé and Tamara. And there's this really funny line in the show that I liked. If you spend time with people who have ants, and all of you know what ants are, automatic negative thoughts.

If you spend time with people who have ants, your ants will mate with their ants, and you'll create mutant ants infesting the relationship with negativity. And that's why when you and I first got together, I took you to a Byron Katie conference just so that we have clean thinking. My first two gifts from you, going to meet Byron Katie and 10 sessions of EMDR. And I'm like, you think I'm really screwed up. No, I thought you were amazing. I loved you. Love you.

I just wanted you to have good programming, given that you had a fair amount of trauma when you were young. And I thought I was fine. Fouled up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. It was a gift to our relationship. Oh, for sure. Which is, you know, 14 years, you are the best thing that ever happened to me. Aw. Vice versa.

So five is really about family support. And six is you got to get started today. Tomorrow never comes. People go, oh, I'll start tomorrow. And it's like, no, tomorrow never comes. Anyways, I hope you look forward to when the show comes out. We'll talk about the book a lot between now and March when it comes out. But I think it's the best thing I've ever read.

You've written some really good books. I know, but nothing quite like this. You remind me of John Maxwell now well thank you as soon as I heard him say every time he's writing a book it's the best book he's ever written I'm like oh my gosh that's you completely because he's in love with what he's writing

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