Change Your Brain Every Day - Toxins: What Goes On Your Body Goes In Your Body

Episode Date: July 13, 2017

In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen dive into the many toxins (which we may or may not know about) that are finding their way into our body. However, they also discuss the many ways to detox and get those toxins out of the body.

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. We are so grateful that you are with us. I want to start by reading a testimonial that I just love. Over a year ago, I fell into a horrendous pit of anxiety and depression and found myself without hope. Using the principles you talk about in the Brain Warriors Way podcast, I found that my habits were playing a huge part in my spiral. I fixed all of these things and became very serious about brain health.

And boom, completely healed. I love that. I love that part. It's like, drop the microphone, boom. Right, walk off. I'm healed. Walk off stage. Now, doesn't always happen like that,

but what we want for you is to be serious about brain health because when you are, you feel so much better and we hope you'll be like this person and say, boom, completely healed. So what I love about that is there's no fairy dust here, right? We don't have a magic wand. We're not like, this isn't a cult, okay? So people are like, I don't have a magic wand. We're not like, this isn't a cult. Okay. So people are like, I don't understand how this thing works. It works because we're going after all the things that are leading you down that road to depression, anxiety, obesity, you know, losing your memory. And we're going after all of them. And we're teaching you do an assessment, figure out what

you're doing that's causing these problems. And we're teaching you not only that you can do it how to do it but that it's not that hard so you know well brain health you know i always say it's like super easy right it's three things brain envy you gotta care about it freud was wrong penis envy is not the deal he's like two and a half feet too low in your body. Okay, then. I always liked being a girl, so I don't know. He's focused on the wrong organ. Brain M, you got to care. Avoid anything that hurts it and do things that help it. And ultimately, you got to know the list.

Right. And that's what we do is we teach you. And do it with a great attitude. Right. Because, you know, people go, oh, I don't want to deprive myself. Or, oh, it's too hard. And I'm going to find this text from my friend, Miley Cyrus, who gave me permission, actually, to share it. Isn't it fun when you finally get permission to use those?

We have so many and we can't use them. Especially from someone. If you've seen her in the news recently, she's been, it's hilarious because my daughter follows her a lot and she was the biggest pothead and she talks about it. She jokes about it. So when you've,

if you've seen any of her recent interviews, they're hilarious when she talks about how much she used to smoke. Well, and last week, I just got to speak to 7,000 teens. Oh, and you were, I'm going to say this. You were in your element. Chloe and I were there. Chloe looked at me. She goes, what is happening?

She's like, what is this place? Literally, there were almost 5,000 genius high school kids they were like all geniuses it was like crazy stuff like they already have detected a 15 year old who found early detection for prostate breast and liver cancer what okay so these kids are like like out of control smart and 5,000 of them right and you get up to speak and you get a standing ovation before you even start and I'm like Chloe looked at me and she's like, what is this? What is happening right now? She's like, he's a rock star for nerds.

It was hilarious. Our geek concert. So I was getting ready for the concert. The concert. It's my little Justin Bieber bieber moment let me have it and i have a part in there on who has more fun the kid with the good brain or the kid with the bad brain right who's making good decisions or bad decisions who gets the girl and gets to keep her because he doesn't act like a jerk all the girls start screaming like crazy because they're like no jerks preach it brother who gets into the college they want to get into who has the best job

takes the coolest vacation makes the most money and so i knew i was going to do that part in the concert and so i text miley who I knew had stopped smoking pot about 12 weeks ago. I'd actually sent her our study on... It just took a while for it to kick in. A thousand people. You know, potheads compared to healthy, potheads have lower activity

in virtually every area of their brain um and then she stopped and so let me just say it's not a judgment we're not judging you for smoking pot we're telling you what happens in your brain so anyways so i texted her um week before last and I said so what do you think are you having more fun with your good brain habits or your bad ones and she texted me back ha good exclamation point by a billion yeah it was really cute uh i was and and so i got to share that at the the lecture and the kids went wild and that's that's what we want for you we you know brain health three things brain envy you gotta care avoid anything that hurts your brain drugs, head trauma, pot, also bad food, not sleeping, and then do things that help your brain. And we came across this study about toxins. Right.

So interesting. So we're talking about doing all these things that you know, like you know, right? You want to do the right things. But what about when you don't know? And when you think you're doing the right thing, like putting sunscreen on. Right. So any of you who took chemistry, right? Some of you liked it. Some of you hated it. But one of the fun parts about chemistry is mixing all these things together and getting crazy reactions, right? Sometimes they explode. Sometimes they turn different colors. All these different things happen. But who would have thought, right? We think we're doing the

right thing. You put sunscreen on your body. And the study just came out, I guess it was at the Moscow State University, just published a study that basically showed that when you put sunscreen on, which sunscreen by itself can be very toxic if you don't get the right sunscreen. So you have to read the ingredients. so and um so the app um think dirty or skin deep both of those apps can really help you um but when you put sunscreen on and you get into chlorinated water so those of you with kids right my daughter's whole life i've been putting sunscreen on her because she's very very pale she's got very very light skin so i'm putting like a hundred right sunscreen of a 100 on her

so she doesn't fry like a little tomato. And then she goes swimming all day. And I keep reapplying it and reapplying it. And this new study came out that it said deadly combination of chlorinated water and UV rays can reduce compound and sunblock into toxic chemicals linked to infertility, immune system damage, and even cancer. What? You are so evil. I know. And I'm trying so hard.

Isn't that awful? It's awful. That you think you're doing the right thing, and then you get new information. But what I want you to think about is what goes on your body goes in your body. And so it's critical that we read the labels. But those combinations can sometimes, the one thing isn't as bad. You mix it with something else and all of a sudden you have a whole new compound.

And then when I was working on Memory Rescue, my new book coming out in November, which I think you can pre-order on Amazon, it's based on this really simple idea. If you want to prevent Alzheimer's disease, if you want to keep your memory healthy for as long as possible or get it back if you think it's going to the dark place. You have to prevent all the risk factors that we know destroy your brain. And I developed a mnemonic called Bright Minds that highlights those 11 risk factors. And the T in bright for bright minds is toxins. And as I was working on this book, that's when I developed this idea, whatever goes on your body goes in your body.

I learned about the app Think Dirty, downloaded it, and started scanning things on my side of the bathroom. And then you started scanning things on your side of the bathroom. We you started scanning things on your side of the bathroom we literally threw out 80 i didn't tell you i ended up rescuing most of it for our end of the world stash but i figured if we're not going to use it on ourselves we can even use it as weapons i suppose but no it's now in our in our apocalyptic room oh Oh, Terry wants to talk to you about doing a whole series on what to do. Oh, you have no idea.

I'm like, yeah, I'm the queen. Or a nuclear attack or whatever. But let's stay with the topic. Anyway. Toxins. What goes on your body goes in your body. And this one study just highlights how important it is not to put toxic things on your body. So what's a mother to do if she's got a pool and she's got kids?

Yeah, it's really hard in the summer. And I mean, the pool for me was the best babysitter. I mean, make no mistake about it. You just have all the friends over, go out in the pool, you sit out there in the shade and you just watch them all swim because- Well, everybody has sunscreen on. Everybody's got sunscreen on. And you're poisoning their little immune system. And who knew, right? So, I mean, I guess the one thing, especially if you've got a child like mine who's really,

really fair. I mean, I'm really fair. She's more fair than I am. So, I guess the one thing with this study that I'm not clear about that I want to dig into a little more to answer the question, I want to know which compounds are turning because there are different types of sunscreen, right? So I have some sunscreens that are natural. Are those breaking down as well? Is it the titanium dioxide or is it the chemicals? Because titanium dioxide is just that it's that barrier, right? It's not really. So I'm thinking that

maybe if you get one that's more natural that has titanium dioxide, maybe it's better. But I don't know yet. I actually don't know. The other thing is you can try to do more swimming in the early hours or the later hours. That's another thing. And the third thing is, you know, I don't know, try to get some shade over certain parts of your pool if that's even possible. And that's, you know. So I like early hours or late hours. Some sun is actually good because that's how we get vitamin D. Right, but we mostly overdo it.

And that's the hard part. Where we live. Where we live, people tend to overdo it and damage their skin and cause problems because it's sunny all year long. So that's hard. So I tell my patients 20 minutes a day, right? The sun doesn't have to be in the hottest part of the day.

Elevate your vitamin D levels, right? Never get burned. Burns bad. But you know, we were made in the sun, but we can go at 10 in the morning you can go the dermatologist won and they made everybody afraid of the sun and there's a higher incidence of breast cancer and other forms of cancer with vitamin d levels low. Brand new study just out today. Studies are just on and on over and over with vitamin D

that the incidence of colon cancer significantly higher in people who have low levels versus those who have high levels. So normal is between 30 and 100. For people who are above 40 40 compared to people below 20 they have half the risk of cancer so you can cut your risk in half and so so i would advocate some, 20 minutes, never get burned, and cover up so you don't, so more hats, less sunscreen,

especially if you're gonna go in a pool that has chlorine. So I just noticed something as I read a little, I did a little bit of reading really quickly. One of the chemicals that is bad, avobenzone. So take a look at your sunscreen and see if avobenzone, and that's a derivative of a compound called dibenzomethane, dibenzomethane. So avobenzone is the most popular UV filter in the world. So it's not titanium dioxide. Apparently, that's the one that's's not titanium dioxide that is apparently that's mostly that's the one mostly used the chemical and that's the one that's been studied in this um oh

it's also in lipsticks and other cosmetics so pay attention you have to be careful who you kiss did you know and i also talk about this in the book that 60 of the lipstick sold in the u.s has lead in it yeah i call it the kiss especially especially the long wearing ones so i just wanted to make sure i put that out there because that is good to know so look for one that's more natural that doesn't have that in it that might be using titanium dioxide dioxide um and also it says um avoid, we already knew this, and those apps we told you about will actually help you, avoid aldehydes, phenols, and acetylbenzines. So those apps will show you if those are in your products.

Well, the cool thing about Think Dirty is it'll tell you on a scale of 1 to 10 how quickly your products are killing you. Right. And so you get a choice. And another thing I've been thinking about a lot recently is the brain hates change. The brain hates change. And so when people get this idea, it's like, well, what could I do? And your brain wants to default to what it's always done, even though it may not be good for you.

That's why we say this is a war. It's why the podcast is called The Brain Warrior's Way, because you're actually in a war with your own brain that wants to keep doing the things it's always done. So a few things you could do to detox. Let's talk about that really quick. If you've been doing some of these things, detoxing is really important. So we want to leave you with some things you could do to detox. Let's talk about that really quick. If you've been doing some of these things, detoxing is really important. So we want to leave you with some things you can do to detox, right? So on a regular basis,

didn't you say there was a study about people who use a sauna? I did. So if you think about detox, so I don't know about you. I think we're the same, but I'm not really a fan of two-week cleanses. I'm a fan of living your life detoxed.

Well, two-week cleanse, I'm not a fan of juice cleanses. That's not realistic to do long-term juice cleanses. Or eat like crap most of the year and then do a two-week cleanse. I'm a fan of living your life, getting rid of the toxins in your life. And so to detox, you want to support the four organs of detoxification. So your kidneys drink more water.

Right. Skin. Your gut eat more fiber. Move it on out. And water. gut eat more fiber right move it on out and water your liver i like n-acetylcysteine right and kill the alcohol i'm not just a fan because it is hard on your liver as is fructose fruit sugar and your skin and sweating is one of the most important things to detox. Right, so sweating, so saunas.

Intense exercise. And there's a study from Finland that showed people who took the most saunas had the lowest incidence of dementia. So if you don't have access to a sauna, one thing that a lot of people do is you can do dry brushing, like with a loofah on your skin, dry, brush the dead skin off. A lot of people do that. And you can, you know, make your shower sort of steamy and hot. I mean, saunas are better if you can get one, if you have a gym or somewhere you go to.

But if not, then at least get your shower steamy for a while, right? That's actually a good sort of substitute. And make sure you're drinking a lot of water. Now notice liver, skin, kidney, um, and gut water for all of them, right? So water, water, water. One thing Chloe and I do in the mornings, um, we haven't gotten you on board yet, but is the, you'll do the lemon in your water, but we do lemon water with ginger and cayenne pepper, um, because it's supposed to be detoxifying. It's good for not only your skin, but your liver and getting everything going. And it's sort of alkalinizing, right? So it's an alkaline type of reaction in the body.

And cayenne pepper boosts blood flow to the brain. So it can help wake you up. Right. Some people are sensitive to it. You don't have to put that in. So that's actually really good. And then, so drink more. So green drinks, a lot of people like green drinks for detoxifying,

and that's good. They are detoxifying. However, every time we say this, there are some people who either have thyroid or kidney problems. Yes, you do have to know if you have thyroid or kidney problems. There are things in green drinks that are like goitrogens. So you want to be careful. Know and talk to your doctor if you're not supposed to eat. Explain what that is. People don't know what that means. So goitrogens are sometimes a lot of things that can affect your thyroid that actually

lead to goiters or problems with your thyroid. So your big thyroid. Right. So some doctors don't want you eating excessive amounts of green leafy vegetables. So it doesn't mean no green leafy vegetables. It means excessive amounts. And juicing can sometimes,

like green juices can sometimes, they're obviously a concentrated form. And when you have green juices, be careful about the amount of sugar in them. Well, yeah, I get mine with no fruit. Right. So I don't do apple in mine. So if anything,

I might do like a half of a beet because that's good for your liver, right? And it's good for blood flow, but don't let them put two beets in it because that's too much sugar. The other thing is for your kidneys, be careful because kidneys are one of the organs of detoxification. If you have kidney stones. So it's funny, I actually went on the website for the kidney, you know, the American Kidney Association, and they don't recommend not eating greens. So most doctors will tell you, stop eating green leafy vegetables if you have kidney stones. The actual, the kidney association is like, yeah, that's not good for you because vegetables are so valuable for so many things. What they do say is don't eat an excessive amount and don't, don't do, um, don't

vary them like a ton, right? So you don't want to vary that, like you want to be eating consistent amounts. So they actually recommend other ways of managing your kidney stones, like drinking a lot of water. And you can go on their website and get all of this. And we have other podcasts and I have other YouTube, um, uh, videos where you can actually get that information. But for your kidneys, if you are trying to limit your oxalates, then don't drink an excessive amount of green drinks. So that's what you need to know about green drinks.

Awesome. The last thing in detoxifying your body is get rid of the toxic thoughts you have. It actually affects your body, doesn't it? And the toxic people. Yeah. So you have to be careful with both of those now isn't that interesting that toxic thoughts create a toxic body every thought you have affects every cell in your body yeah toxic thoughts are like pollution in the Los Angeles basin I thought the part the thing that

i think stuck with me the most when i first met you was seeing the before and after scan of the woman who was focusing on gratitude in one scan and then was focusing on something she hated in this the other scan she didn't look it didn't look like the same person now it deactivated her brain in a very negative way. That shocked me, which means it's also changing chemistry, right? Well, it changes chemistry, absolutely. So that's... And I knew that a long time ago.

We do a lot of biofeedback here. So we hook up your hand temperature, your heart rate, your muscle tension, how you breathe, how much you sweat. And, you know, ever since, when I started Amen Clinics, I'd do a word association test for people to see, well, what triggered stress in their body. So when they thought about negative things, immediately their hands get colder, their hands get wetter, their muscles get more tense, their breathing changes. And it happens immediately when they think about positive, happy, hopeful things.

Their skin gets drier, their hands get warmer, their muscles get more relaxed, their breathing becomes deeper and more regular. And it happens immediately. Toxic thoughts change your body immediately. And that's so, so as somebody who's had cancer, right? And who was really sick as a kid and who had lots of other health issues. When I heard that and saw that, I went, whoa, okay. So you mean growing up in a toxic environment when I was a kid just might have had something to do with that. Now, I can't change what happened in the past, but I can certainly focus on making it better going forward.

Well, and as somebody who has two black belts, that took a lot of work. Right. And it took a lot of discipline. Right. And it took a lot of discipline. What I want our listeners to do is discipline their minds to get them going in a helpful direction. And that takes work. It takes some discipline that you don't have to believe every stupid thought you have.

And that's why whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, we want you to write down your thoughts. I mean, it's really the best way to detoxify your brain is write down your thoughts, correct them, and get them going in a more helpful direction. Absolutely. Stay with us. You're listening to The Brain Warrior's Way. Thank you for listening to The Brain Warrior's Way podcast.

We have a special gift for you. It's an opportunity to win an evaluation at the Amen Clinics. All you have to do is subscribe to this podcast, leave a review, and rate us on iTunes. To learn more about Amen Clinics and the work we do, go to amenclinics.com. You can also learn about our nutraceutical products at brainmdhealth.com. Thanks for listening.