Change Your Brain Every Day - When Dr. Amen Met Tana

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

A brain health love story for the ages, the fateful encounter between Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen sparked the beginning of an exciting new chapter in the brain health revolution. In this week of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen examine some of the lessons and anecdotes from Tana’s highly anticipated new book “The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child”. This episode reveals how the two met, and how bumpy beginnings eventually led to happily ever after.  For more information on Tana's new book, "The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child", visit relentlesscourage.com For info on Tana Amen's upcoming free live virtual event, visit tanaamen.com/event  

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, everyone. We are so excited to be on this continuing journey through the relentless courage of a scared child. And this week,

everything changes. Tana meets me, tortures me for about the first 18 months of our relationship. And, you know, we have so many great reviews. There's reviews from Australia and from London. But I want to read a review that is actually one of our winners. So Susan from Denver, this podcast is full of insightful wisdom for a variety of aspects that you may not connect to brain health. So refreshing to know they're looking into new ways to diagnose and treat various brain issues.

Awesome. So Susan gets either the end of mental illness or my new book. We'll sign those. So you can have the relentless courage of a scared child, or you can have the cookbook, your choice. So let us know. Well,

we're always grateful and whatever you learn, if you write it down, take a picture of it, post it on any of your social media sites. And then leave us a review at brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. We'll enter you into a drawing to win one of our books. We are so grateful. So the year is 2005. at the end of 2005 we meet each other well we left off with sort of a cliffhanger story and life was a little crazy so just we're not going to go into all of that lots happens in the book between the playboy cancer story and me meeting you and it's not all

good it's some of it's very good but there's a lot of ups and downs during that time and then i meet you yes and then you meet me and our first formal date was january 1st 2006 we sort of think of that as our anniversary and actually we actually forget our real anniversary a lot's terrible. We both forget our real anniversary. A lot. I mean, January 1st is easy to remember. So we remember that. And so 15 years ago.

Yeah. I totally didn't trust you. And I was like really excited. Yeah, I almost canceled my first date. To meet you. I'd been divorced six years and had a couple of relationships that, you know, we're fine, but they weren't awesome. And then I meet you and you are beautiful. You're smart. You're funny. Um, my heart goes pitter patter and then you keep pushing me away,

pushing me away, pushing me away. Well, you kept trying to marry me. Like you, like you just like, I didn't ask you to marry me. You did pretty quick. You were pretty serious, pretty quick. And, and, and it just, you were so nice and I didn't trust it. It's like, I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. There's no way I trusted that you were that nice. Yeah. No, I should have been way more anxious than I was about you. I tried to tell you. I tried to tell you. I was helping you.

I tried to tell you I am doing you a favor. Did I not? You did, and you were wrong. Because ultimately being married to you is the best decision I've made. Aw. So, you know, I sort of had a sense that you were the one and then you kept going away. But, you know, there are a couple of really pivotal parts. Yeah. After we met, because this is just how I am, I scammed you. Like two and a half weeks later, I'm like,

you haven't seen the clinic. Don't you want to see the clinic? And I'm like, and you want to see my naked brain. I did give you credit for most original line. Yeah. I heard a lot of lines and that one was very original. And during our first day, I sort of thought you had ADD. I did not have ADD. You totally had ADD your whole life. Your mother has ADD from hell. And I just thought, I thought ADD was total nonsense, an excuse to fail, not try. And when I sort of just ask questions. Oh yeah. You're like, you're like, oh, but you drink two pots of coffee every day. And in your words, you get up at four

o'clock in the morning to do a hard two-hour workout so you can quote unquote, clear the cobwebs. And I'm like, yeah, so. And you work in a trauma unit where it's like the most intense unit in the hospital. And a lot of trauma doctors are ADD because they just thrive on the dopamine hit. And so when i scanned you showed yes indeed you did have a little bit but then your brain had been hurt yeah which i also thought was crazy but i'm like well have you ever had a brain injury now she works on a neurosurgical icu unit so she thinks you have to have like that means like yeah you cracked your skull open. You've got a brain in your brain. Except when I asked her. You're in a coma.

And she said, now. And then I asked her again. And she said, well, I was 25. And my sister fell asleep at the wheel. And we were going 75 miles an hour. And she fell asleep. And the car flipped three times. And the roof of the car was smashed in and you lived only because you were reclined

i was reclined yeah and i you know i didn't i walked away so i guess i was just so grateful that i walked away from it may remember being jostled back and forth um so but i you know i think i hit but if you just think of your brain is soft, your skull is hard, your skull has sharp bony ridges, those forces of your brain spinning and then stopping. I mean, as a nurse, I'm like, we arrest people for shaken baby syndrome, right? So for a reason, but it, but up until then, I, that never made sense to me because I'm thinking brain injury means you're in a coma. So, you know, those types of types of things so and you were not and I could see evidence on yeah I could see a little dent I'm like what the heck is that yeah and sometimes that can go with mood instability or irritability not that anyone would ever notice that as long as I'm not in line I can't be in line I hate being in line

and I don't like when construction is late but but even despite that you had a beautiful brain and one of the first things I said is I hope they didn't put you on Prozac yeah and I literally my jaw hit the tab like why and he said because he's like you know that he's like there are probably medications that would have helped you but that wouldn't be one I would suspect did. He said, you said you were depressed. Did they put you on Prozac? And I'm like, they did. And it almost ruined my life. And I mean, I did some crazy stuff on Prozac. And so I'm not just lucky that I, whether it was the grace of God, or I still had some, you know, semblance of control left enough to just like not totally ruin my life, but it could have ruined my life. And so you're like,

and I'm like, why would you not put me on Prozac? And then you, you sort of show me my brain scan. You're like, this part of your brain is sleepy, your frontal lobes. And what Prozac does is it increases serotonin. It's a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. So it increases the available serotonin, which drops your frontal lobes, but yours are already sleepy. So if you put someone on something that drops their frontal lobes and their frontal lobes are already sleepy, that increases impulsivity and it affects their judgment. And it's the executive center of their brain. And I'm like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

My whole life made sense. Like that whole period of time where I was like, why do I just keep doing stupid things? And I don't care. Like the weird part was it wasn't the stupid doing stupid things. Wasn't even the craziest part. It was the not caring. Cause that's not like me.

I'm an anxious person. Like, you know, me, I'm a very anxious person. So it did not for the end of the world. I prepare for everything. Like I, I mean, in school, I know me, I'm a very anxious person. So it did not for the end of the world. I prepare for everything. Like I, I mean, in school, I was like, everything had to be turned in way early. So all of a sudden I just didn't care. And for that, and what went off Prozac, it went away. And so I was like, oh my God, that makes so much sense.

And I remember thinking that psychiatrist that put me on that and he had increased, he had doubled my dose when I complained that I didn't feel right. Like he should have been arrested for not actually like paying attention. He's taught not to. Okay. Well, he shouldn't have been taught that. I'm sorry. I'm a patient. So the judgmental dragon roaring in his head. Yes. Absolutely. When it ruins your life. Yes. I get to say that. Yes, I do. Anybody out there feel this way? Anybody else out there experience this? Please leave a comment. I want to know because I know I'm not the only one. You are not. Yes. So lots of insights. And another thing you told me was since the age of four, you had upper and lower GIs. And I'm like, well, what happened at four? And nothing.

My standard response was nothing. Everything was fine. And then I learned your uncle was murdered. Yeah, you're like really sneaky. Like you're super sneaky. Oh, no, I have a book. Yeah, don't date a shrink. Called The Brain in Love that I actually wrote when we were dating. The Brain in Love. And there's chapter six. It's called Seeing the Dead Animals Around the Oasis of Love.

It's actually if you're dating- And you didn't run when you met me? It's actually, when you're dating, how to screen people for brain health, emotional health issues. Are they going to be a good partner or not? Well, for me, I have this rescue thing, which you hate because-

I hate because I don't think of myself and i don't think of myself as a victim either so you're not a victim yeah but i thought that's why i kept pushing because i cared about you that i could be helpful to you and so when i learned really the stories in the relentless courage like Like I said, you're sneaky about getting information. That with help, you could just be even more amazing than I already thought you were. And one of my first gifts to you was EMDR. Well, but let's go back to the story because you're like, what happened at four? You were having upper and lower Gays that doesn't make sense then you found out that

you know my uncle was murdered and there was other stuff and my dad had was coming and going and doing drugs and you know whatever um there was a lot of stuff that was and that's how i said it to i'm like yeah but it was just like what happens to everybody right it's like garden variety dysfunctional and so you're like and you just you had that And so, and you're like, and you just, you had that look right there. And you're like, no, that's not like, no. You're like, so two weeks after this incident where your uncle was murdered and there's screaming and chaos and, you know, craziness in your house and you get pushed away and you feel sort of rejected, you know, you start having these, these GI issues. And I was sick all the time.

I mean, I was always on antibiotics. Well, and most people don't know serotonin that helps you feel normal is wildly important to your gut. And it gives you a sense of safety that you can eat these foods or you can digest these foods. So think serotonin and safety. And you had no safety at the time. No, I did not feel safe. You had no safety. So when we come back, we're going to talk about how important trauma therapy is to being well. Did you learn anything besides don't marry a psychiatrist?

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