Change Your Brain Every Day - The Chemistry of Happiness

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

Do you know what makes you happy? Sure, a cute puppy or a kiss from a loved one can put a smile on your face, but do you know what takes place in the brain to induce feelings of happiness? In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen explain how the structure and function of your brain can cause your neurons to fire in a way that feels good.

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 to happiness week. We are going to blow your mind in a happy way. And you know, it's happiness week every week because I get to sit next to you. Aw. And I get to wake up and hang out with my best friend.

We have a good life. A big part of happiness are you taking care of the relationships that you have. So let's start off with a review from the website. I am so grateful for these. This is from Marilyn. I am one of the thousands or more who appreciate your podcast. Thank you for saying that.

That's so sweet. Thank you for sharing so openly about your health challenges and anxiety issues. It does give hope and incentive to make healthy choices. I deal with anxiety too. Also, I think you and Dr. Amen are modeling a beautiful and healthy relationship. You both have your different ways of thinking and feeling. Oh, they're so different.

Yet there is so much love. Just wanted to thank you. You're helping're so good. Yet there is so much love. Just wanted to thank you. You're helping me so much. When there are too many ants in my head, I listen to Dr. Amen to put a sane voice in my head. You know, it's sort of my goal to be the little voice that helps you do the right thing. I'm not sure sane is the word, but positive. No, I took the MMPI.

Oh, dear Lord. It said I was completely normal. Do you know what it said about me? Tell me. Brutally honest. Oh, well, that's- I'm paraphrasing. I also had a similar Catholic upbringing, so can really relate.

Thank you. Marilyn, thank you, Marilyn. Thank you so much. We are grateful to everyone who listens. And so when we think about happiness, there are a number of components that go to that. So let's talk about the brain. Yeah.

I want to talk about this. The first thing I want to know is what is it? So let's talk about the brain. Yeah, I want to talk about this. So the first thing I want to know is what is it? So let's talk about the brain. Right. And then let's talk about the mind. And let's talk about relationships. Right. But let's start with the science.

So the science of happiness. Like what is happiness? So it's different, I hear, than joy. It's that sense of positive contentment. So happiness is more of like a daily feeling compared to joy, which is what? It's like that burst of intensity, of intense feeling. Happiness is positive contentment. Okay. You feel positive but also content.

So joy is like that jolt of dopamine that we've talked about. And so what gives you that sense of positive contentment? So I have all kinds of questions and all kinds of things going on in my head. So I want to know part of it. I want to know the science, like what's the chemistry of happiness? But I also want to know then what is the thought process of happiness, right? So I want to talk about both of those. So we're going to talk about brain first.

So that's the chemistry. Right. So are your neurons firing in a healthy way? And so if you had to narrow it down, so your mood is often associated with your deep limbic brain. And that includes your amygdala, your hippocampus, your thalamus. So there are structures deep in your brain. And when they work too hard, it's often associated with depression. And keeping them sort of soothed and calm, yet working hard enough is really-

So maybe meditation can help with that. So meditation actually activates your frontal lobes and can calm down your limbic or emotional brain. So that's why sometimes when I meditate, I actually feel this joy feeling. There's some chemistry involved. Right. And you have to have enough of the neurotransmitters. So it's serotonin and dopamine. And those have to be balanced, right?

And norepinephrine and GABA. And they have to be balanced in order for you to feel right. Right. Which means you need to get the right food. And nutrients can be helpful as well. We write about that a lot in Brain Warriors Way. We talk about nutrients. And I write about it a lot in Feel Better Fast and Make It Last.

And in Feel Better Fast, I talk about bright minds. So if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it if it's headed to the dark place you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind and we're not going to go over all of them but for example b is for blood flow low blood flow especially to the left front side of your brain is associated with depression and right-handed people. And so I always tell people, if you're going to fall out of a second story window, fall on your right side. Because the right side tends to be the more anxious,

fearful, mournful side. And damaging the right side actually goes along with being silly. How funny. There's actually a term for it. Is that why my mom started laughing? Like she doesn't stop laughing ever since she hit her head. There's actually a term for it. Is that why my mom started laughing? Like she doesn't stop laughing ever since she hit her head. So there's a term for it. It's called Witzel such.

For people who had right frontal lobe tumors. And it means addicted to bad jokes. Oh, how funny. So some of the comedians probably were dropped on their head. That's so funny. A good comedian, I suppose. So we've talked about neurotransmitters. Blood flow.

Blood flow. So anything that lowers blood flow will actually lower your happiness. And I assume PTSD can trigger that part of the limbic brain. PTSD can trigger off the limbic brain to work too hard. Okay. What about hormones? Well. Because just look at a woman in menopause.

Nothing makes her happy. Are you speaking from personal experience? Well, fortunately not quite yet, but I think I'm headed that way. So inflammation is another major cause of unhappiness. And people have no idea about that. And 97% of the population is low in omega-3 fatty acids, one of the major causes of high inflammation, along with gut health problems.

So if your gut's not right, your brain's not right. Because you won't even produce enough serotonin. Right, you won't produce enough serotonin. You're not happy. Right. You won't produce enough serotonin. Well, the gut produces serotonin for your body. It produces 90% of it. But it doesn't do it for your brain. So it's a little bit of a misnomer.

But you need the building blocks. But when your body's inflamed because you have leaky gut, which we've talked about a number of times, you're not going to be happy. Right. And when you're in pain, you're not going to be happy. Now, 30% of happiness is associated with G, genetics. And so, you know, I tend to have a happy mom and I tend to have a grouchy but reasonably happy dad.

And so I've never suffered with depression. On your dad's side, there's serious depression. And so we have a tendency, but you can magnify it by how you live and what you do. H is head trauma. You hurt the left front side of your head. That's why you should never let children hit soccer balls with their head or engage in risks that are high concussion activities. It's a major cause of depression, anxiety attacks, suicide, unhappiness.

Toxins, the toxins people put on their bodies. So there are brain reasons. But on top of that, as somebody who's been through some of these challenges, things like thyroid really affect it. It's another hormone. Well, the neurohormone section. Right. That's the N in Bright Minds.

When your thyroid's not right, you're not happy. Well, and even things as simple as ferritin. If your iron is low, your ferritin, you're going to be exhausted. It's really hard to function normally and have passion if you're exhausted all the time. Right? So some simple nutrient things you can have checked. And we always say you can't change what you don't measure. Right.

And baritone is actually very important. Vitamin D as well. All of those things will affect your... So we talk about it from the standpoint of affecting weight and your health and your overall brain activity, memory, but we haven't really talked about it as far as affecting happiness. It affects happiness. Positive contentment.

Because it will make you exhausted and tired. And diabetes is also associated with unhappiness. Having hypoglycemia. So if you're someone who gets hangry. Oh, yeah. Remember Chloe when she was little? So she'd fall asleep often when we were in the car. And she'd sleep for a long time.

And when we would wake her up. Oh, dear Lord. What was it like? Oh, dear Lord. It was terrible. It was terrible. And we couldn't figure it out at first. But then we started figuring it out because as soon as she would eat something,

she'd be happy again. That's how we figured it out. It's like she was completely unreasonable. What would she say right when you'd wake her up? Why are you waking me up? Why are you waking me up? Yeah. Always. Why are you waking me up? But she'd scream it. Yeah. It was not pleasant. No. Do you know anybody that's hangry in your life? I often do a two-hour glucose tolerance test. So I measure, like you said, one of my celebrity kids kept getting arrested and hasn't been arrested since.

And his blood sugar dropped really low. When your blood sugar drops low, not only are you, you have brain fog. You make bad decisions. You're fog. You make bad decisions. You're anxious. You make bad decisions and you're mad and you're not happy. Right. So those are a few things. And sleep. Oh dear. Yes. Is so important. I am one of those people, if I miss a, if I get woken up a half an hour early, it's not even just the happiness. I'm just off all day. Am I not? I'm just wonky.

Yeah. No, I don't roll over in the morning and wake you up. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just, it's the difference between- I will not be happy. No. It's the difference between being really happy and having energy and being like content or being just like all day, just like being off. And it only, it's only a half an hour. If I get woken up a half an hour early, it's just the weirdest thing. I know, but it's this conflict and conflict in my head. She's so cute.

Don't you want to get a kiss? There shouldn't be a conflict because you know, now there is no conflict. There's no conflict. There's more pain than there is gain. I always say to my patients, you know, do you want short-term pain or long-term pain? If I wake you up in the morning, it's long-term pain. So I don't.

When we come back, we're going to talk about the habits of a Happy Mind. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.