Change Your Brain Every Day - The Connection Between Suicidal Thoughts & COVID-19

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen discuss some of the hot button topics surrounding COVID-19 and brain health in general. One of the most alarming of these topics is the climbing rate of suicide and suicidal thoughts during this pandemic. The Amens explain some of the connections between social isolation, stress, helplessness, and depression, and why it’s so important to employ basic wellness strategies to keep sane and healthy. 

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. In this episode, we are going to talk about brain in the news. It's just an exercise I think all of us should do when you become a brain warrior.

Really begin to see how what's happening around you affects the brain, your brain, and the brains of those you love. And it's amazing because almost everything does, everything around you. So we'd be so grateful if you write down what you've learned and hashtag BrainWarriorsWayPodcast, take a picture of it and post it. That would be awesome. Also, you can go to BrainWarriorsWayPodcast.com, leave us questions, comments, and we would love it if you would be awesome. Also, you can go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, leave us questions, comments, and we would love it if you would leave us a review. And we love to read these reviews.

It also enters you into a drawing for one of our books, either Daniel's book, The End of Mental Illness, or my book, The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook. So let's talk about this. So I actually want to read a couple of more reviews. We got so many from Rusty Fungal, a teacher being taught. I'm so glad I found this life-changing podcast. I've shared so much with teens who need this. Oh, awesome. I heartily recommend this team. That's so great.

Or from Scott. Thank you, Dr. Amen and Tana for all of the excellent content, both online and in the Brain Warriors Way podcast during these unprecedented times. We have a course on Amen University, the Brain Warriors Way that you and I actually taught over six months. It's a 26 hour course, but the results of people who took that course were stunning, better mood, better memory,

better energy, better focus, less stress, less anxiety, less pain and better sleep. So, um, we're just so grateful.

Um, brain warrior forever. better sleep. Yep. So we're just so grateful. Brain Warrior Forever. Thank you for the information on the coronavirus and reminding us about keeping healthy by reducing inflammation and strengthening our immune system. I believe people are looking for more informative ways to weather this virus, in my mind, it is more important to be a warrior as opposed to being a victim, a brain warrior. Love it. Just so grateful. All right. Questions? No, brain in the news. Here we go. So there's a new report released by the CDC that shows more Americans are struggling with mental health and substance abuse during COVID than ever before. The report highlights the need for more mental health services and resources at both state and local levels. I mean, this isn't a surprise to us. We started hearing about this right off the bat. Calls to suicide hotlines are up a thousand percent. More people are

struggling with opioid addiction than ever before. And new data reveals- Any kind of addiction. Really? Here, let me do this one. New data reveals one in four young people have contemplated suicide during the pandemic. Again, data from the CDC, the report looked at survey responses from 5,412 adults regarding their mental health and behavioral health at the end of June. More than 10% of the respondents said they seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days. Wow. The percentages were much higher for young adults, higher for Black and Hispanic respondents, higher for essential workers and unpaid caregivers. This is a percentage breakdown, unpaid caregivers for adults, 31%. Young adults, 18 to 24, 25%. Essential workers, 22%. Hispanic responders, 19%. black respondents, 15%, along with suicidal thoughts, 13% of the respondents

use substances like alcohol or drugs. And that's the problem. It's not always the problem, though. Yes, it is a big part of the problem. And they're talking about young adults, but teenagers also. But the problem is if you have suicidal thoughts. So what we see very common, especially during this chronically stressful time. And I had a patient yesterday who had been depressed and it's like, okay, now it's COVID. I hope it takes me. So that's a passively suicidal thought. I've heard several people say that that if you have the thought so having the thought is not that abnormal acting on it is but if you have the thought and then you use substances

especially those that drop frontal lobe function you are more likely to act on it but one thing and we've certainly seen this in our own house, and I've heard this with many people who write in, when you've got teenagers or very young adults living in your house, one thing we've certainly seen in our own house, there was a sense of panic and hopelessness at the same time, because no one has really experienced this, right? This is unprecedented. And especially during the earlier part of COVID, when nobody was really going out at all, there was this like, wait, life is never going to be the same. Are people I love going to die?

What do you mean I can't go to school or graduate or start my first year in college? We saw a lot of this. And so young people who had never really had to deal with wars in this country, or, you know, a lot of kids have dealt with a lot of trauma. And what I noticed is our nieces who had dealt with trauma, did a little bit better than some of the kids we know who haven't dealt with much of anything, because it felt like such an overwhelming thing to deal with for the first thing. Right. And we did notice that. So yeah, substances are not going to make that better. But we just saw the panic, the fear, the overwhelm that happened when COVID happened because kids were just not at all prepared for it. So let's be clear, you know, what I do with my patients, that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary feeling.

And if you hate the people in your life, kill yourself. Because the imprint of sadness, loss, pain, grief, it just leaves a mark and if you have children if you model that behavior it dramatically increases their risk of hurting themselves or killing themselves and and so when people get depressed it's like their brain gets in a tunnel and there are no windows and there are no doors in the tunnel. So all they see is get me out of this pain and they see suicide as something that hurts them or ends their pain, but doesn't affect anyone else. And for whatever reason, I've been blessed by being around a lot of suicide. My son, who I adopted when he was nine, his biological father killed himself. Just see the devastation.

Even though I was raising him, I could see how painful that was. And then my son-in-law had a father who killed himself, again, devastating for the whole family. It's something that has generational consequences. Well, I've certainly had people in my family who were suicidal um fortunately didn't commit suicide but were suicidal and what's interesting is they don't see at the time because they can't because of their own pain what it's doing to the rest of the family um and when i one of them that i was sort of coaching through this you know, when I explained, look, your kids, this is like, your kids think it's their fault. And those words were sort of like a slap in the face. Because at that point, that person was like, why would they think it's their fault? This has

nothing to do with them. No, the question is, why wouldn't they think it's their fault? Kids tend to think everything is their fault. They think divorce is their fault. They think if I were only better, this wouldn't have happened, or you didn't love me enough, so I'm not lovable. Because they see the world. They see themselves at the center of the world. Right. And they take on more than they should, which is often why doing your life story is so helpful. You have your book coming out, The Relentless Courage of a Scared child. And it just helps organize things on why you react the way you react.

What are your dragons from the past? Well, we hope this has been helpful for you. Whatever you learn, write it down. Post it on any of your social media sites, hashtag brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. And then we would just dearly love it if you went to BrainWarriorsWayPodcast.com, leave us a comment, question, or a review. If you do, we'll enter you into a raffle to win either the end of mental illness out now, just went over 100,000 copies sold. So I'm pretty excited about that. Or Tana's Cookbook, which is really the official program of Amen Clinics on how to eat

the Brain Warriors Way cookbook. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain-healthy supplements from BrainMD, code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.