Change Your Brain Every Day - The Amen Solution Rapid Fire Q&A Session - Part 3

Episode Date: March 25, 2017

We hope you're enjoying your weekend. Today's episode is the third installment in our four part The Amen Solution Q&A session. Enjoy your weekend treat.

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to the Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amon.

Hello, Dr. Amen. My name is Brad. I have a sort of a technical question. For people with severe inflammatory conditions such as osteoarthritis that seem to interfere with their metabolism and losing weight, what specific protocol would you recommend for them? Okay. So for people who have inflammation, and it's a lot of people, in fact, many people think it is the primary cause of Alzheimer's disease and is involved in depression, along with heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and so on, is the first thing is stop sugar. It's the very first thing. No sugar because sugar is pro-inflammatory. More fruits and vegetables, more fish, get rid of processed foods, things like food additives and food dyes. Fish oil is very helpful because fish oil is anti-inflammatory. So in our clinic,

we often do a test called the AA EPA ratio. So it's the ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-6 fatty acids, you'll find them in things like corn and soy, they're called fall fats because they kill you early. They increase inflammation. Omega-3s are called spring fats because they add life to you. And when we do this test, unless someone is really focused on a healthy diet or taking fish oil, their test scores are just horrible. And so diet, taking fish oil, sometimes SAMe can be very helpful as well. But you know, let's be smart. Let's do it with food first. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Jerry. And my question is twofold. First, what is the best way to really accurately know one's brain type? And the second is, does that brain type change from time to time or situationally in your life? So the best way for people to know their brain type, if they don't get a scan, is to take one of the questionnaires that I've developed because I've seen, okay, it's these symptoms that tend to go with this type. Now, as we age, lots of things happen to us. So if we go through a divorce, well, maybe before I was never compulsive, but now I've been traumatized and talked about in the show about that diamond pattern in the brain and part of the diamond is a compulsive part of the brain. So trauma can change your type. Emotional trauma, physical trauma can also change.

You go through a car accident or you fell off a ladder, fell down a flight of stairs and hurt your frontal lobes. Now all of a sudden you're impulsive where you might not have been impulsive before. So your life can clearly change your brain. Thank you. Hi, my name is Victoria. Would you ever recommend medication or is there always a better way?

Such as for, you know, anti-anxiety or... I often recommend medication. It's just not the first thing I do. So given my ambivalent relationship with medicine, you know, really helps some people, it hurts other people. In my mind, I think, can I do this naturally? And if I can't, well, I'm pretty good at using medicine.

So if I have somebody who's got manic depressive illness or bipolar disorder, I'm gonna be thinking about decreasing the sugar in their diet and increasing the omega-3 fatty acids. And if they're psychotic, I'm going to put them on lithium and abilify because I always want to do what's the right thing for my patient. So I'm not opposed to medicine. I'm just opposed to the indiscriminate use of medicine. And 85% of psychiatric meds are being prescribed by non-psychiatric physicians, often in a seven-minute office visit. So you come into your primary care doctor and you say,

I'm sad, I'm anxious, and I can't sleep. And within seven minutes, and I've seen this happen repeatedly, they leave with prescriptions for Ambien, Xanax, and Lexapro. And I'm like, and no one's talked to them about, do you know how to correct the automatic negative thoughts in your head? Do you know how to breathe with your belly? Do you know how to meditate? And it's like, really? There are other things I can do? Let's be smart about this. Thank you. Hi, my name is Carla. I have a question about working with two separate populations, trauma recovery and the other population I work with is teaching couples how to fight without killing each other. And sometimes there's an overlap. So my question is, when I'm working with both of those populations, are there foods that I should encourage them to eat or not

eat before they come into session and work with me? It's a marvelous question. And what I would say is before they come in to your session, know what their type is. So typically if you have couples that fight, my experience, you have a wife that can't let anything go. Her brain is like a little mouse on an exercise wheel and the mouse can't get off. And she's like chewing on that thing that's upset her over and over and over again. So compulsive type. Yes. Give her a cookie. Give her a cookie. Give her carbohydrates. Okay. Because, and I was kidding with the cookie, give her an orange. Those are messy. Because when you raise, when you use something like an orange, it raises serotonin in the brain and helps the little mouse sit on the couch and not worry so much.

But if she's married to an ADD guy who's late, who can't pay attention, who's distracted, who's conflict driven, give him protein before the session. So what I really want to say is one diet doesn't work for everyone. So you have to know their type, and then you can develop dietary recommendations based on their type. that we talked about, high quality calories, water, lean proteins, smart carbohydrates, healthy fats, eat from the rainbow, and brain healthy herbs and spices. So I think of sort of a nice balance of those things. And if you're more compulsive, more smart carbohydrates, if you're more impulsive, more protein. And just when I'm thinking of it, how we feed children in the morning, it's a scandal because we give them these sugar bombs and then we tell them concentrate. I mean, depending on the child's brain type, we need more protein, especially early in the morning. Okay. So let's say I'm working with this couple and overlay that with post-traumatic stress disorder. So if I'm working with somebody specifically with

PTSD, same question, what food should I feed or not feed them? Tell them, please don't go on the Atkins diet. Okay. Because people with PTSD get stuck. They get the same thought in their head over and over again. They can't let go. So part of the diamond is an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate gyrus, which is where people get stuck on things. So they often have low levels of serotonin. You go on the Atkins diet or you go on a high protein, no carb diet, like I mentioned in the show, you will focus better on the things that upset you. And so the kind of diet really does matter. There's actually a very interesting diet from researchers at MIT called the serotonin solution

diet. And it teaches people to eat carbohydrates as a way to sort of settle down their brain. And it's brilliant for one of the types. And that's the problem with all these diet books is they don't take an individual's brain into account. So there is no one diet for trauma recovery? The answer is yes, there is no one diet for trauma recovery. But I would be thinking that you want to do something with carbohydrates for them to help settle down their brain, but not ones that are addictive. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.