Change Your Brain Every Day - Why Bad Sleep is a Risk Factor for Mental Illness

Episode Date: July 9, 2020

This week’s series of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast has featured powerful lessons from Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen’s End of Mental Illness live class and challenge. The subject of this episode is how poor sleep habits can negatively impact the brain. Many people are unaware that sleep is a major risk factor for cognitive issues such as dementia, and therefore it’s crucial that we take steps to better our circadian rhythms to stay healthy and energetic throughout the day and keep mental illness at bay. To take The End of Mental Illness Brain Health Revolution 6 Week Class and Challenge, visit https://endofmentalillness.com/brainhealthchallenge/

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. Hi, this is Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. We're so excited you're with us for this week's series. What we're doing is we're playing the live class from the end

of mental illness. We wanted you to join us on this journey because we had such a good time in our class. And the people who joined us had just saw such incredible transformation that we wanted to share the challenge with our tribe. So we wanted to share this with you. And we hope that you will join us in the challenge. The S in Bright Minds is sleep issues. It's just so important. 60 million Americans have sleep-related issues. Things like chronic insomnia, sleeping pills, sleep apnea can devastate the brain. And what we see in sleep apnea, actually, the brain looks like it has early Alzheimer's disease with these pitting decreases across your parietal lobes in the top back part of your brain.

It's not good for your brain because your brain is the most oxygen-hungry organ in the body. And any oxygen-dead state damages the brain. So when you sleep, your brain cleans or washes itself. And this study is really interesting. Soldiers who got seven hours of sleep at night were 98% accurate on the range. Those who got just six hours were only 50% accurate. Think about that.

One hour less. Five hours, 28% accurate. Four hours, they're dangerous. So now think about that. How many times have you gone, oh, I didn't sleep last night. I got like two hours less, but I'll just push through. Like I can do it.

Anyway, I can do anything for, I mean, I say it all the time, like especially getting through college. I can do anything for a, I can do anything for, I mean, I say it all the time, like especially getting through college. I can do anything for, you know, short amount of time. Lack of sleep, no problem. It is a problem. Two hours less made them 25% as accurate.

So that's just a huge problem when it comes to your life. So I like this comment from the Skylark, better to give the body a good foundation of health nutrition before trying to do cleanses or fasts. Yes, I agree. Your body needs the tools before it can do detox safely. I just think you should be detoxing all the time. Live in a detox state, but that doesn't mean you have to fast. So shift work, I'm doing this program,

Tana is actually going to help me with it, with the Newport Beach Police Department. And police officers, firefighters, first responders, nurses often have shift work. And there's a toll to those of you that are doing shift work, higher incidence of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, inflammation. It negatively affects your hormones and can increase cognitive impairment. So let's just go through these risk factors. I quit after four months of working nights because I thought, oh, okay, I'll figure it out. I'll adjust to it. Yeah, my way of adjusting to it as a trauma nurse, like I was so afraid I was going to fall asleep. I was eating M&Ms all night. I was eating M&Ms

and drinking coffee all night. And then I'd start to fall asleep every morning when I was driving home that I couldn't sleep during the day because my brain just doesn't sleep during the day. And then I found myself heading for a center divider one morning and I'm like, I'm done. That's it. So for me, it was four months before I realized this lifestyle is never going to work. And did they teach you how to manage shift work? Of course not. Isn't that crazy? You're in a medical center.

You're in a world-class medical center at Loma Linda. And they put you on nights, but they don't teach you how to do nights. Oh, and they put you on nights and you work double shifts. That's fun. All right. So how do you manage shift work? Brain envy. Make it a priority.

Before work, you want to plan your light exposure during the day. A bright light box in BrainMD has a brand new light box. So you guys should put the link so they can see it. In your morning to reset the circadian rhythm, limit caffeine to 12 hours before sleep. The time to exercise is before work, not after work, and limits shift changes to try to allow your body to adapt. After work, limit bright lights, low-dose melatonin. We have a brand new sleep product coming out called Put Me to Sleep. I'm so excited about it. It's chewable. It's got lower-dose melatonin, but along with theanine and 5-HTP and magnesium, scab, I'm so excited about it.

Make sure you have a routine sleep and wake up at the same time. Avoid meals and alcohol two hours before bed. People put themselves to sleep, especially police officers with alcohol. It's just a way to manage the stress. But it's actually over time increasing their stress. Blackout shades, really important. I know that's important for you. Oh, no. I've gone around the room with duct tape and covered every single light source I can find. I've got duct tape over everything. The stupid fire, what is that? The fire, you know, alarm. Smoke alarm.

The smoke detector. Like everything in the house has got duct tape on it. Yeah. What if you're a contractor and never work the same hours each day? It's tricky. It's tricky. You have to make it a priority. I was eating M&M's coffee and drinking Coca-Cola.

See? Is that a nurse? Probably. Yeah. So bedtime routines, things to calm you down, bath, soothing music on Brain Fit Life, our online app. We have hypnosis. One of my favorite tracks is hypnosis for sleep. Lavender, the scent of lavender. Oh, I found the best lavender bedtime tea by Buddha Teas or something. Oh my gosh. It smells so yummy. And it's just so soothing right before bed. Every night, that's my-

You should put a link on tanayman.com. So you can improve your memory tomorrow by getting better sleep tonight. So basically, with all of the bright mind's risk factors, know if you have it, avoid things that hurt it, and then do things that help it. I mean, that's like so simple. And so for sleep, you want to avoid caffeine, a warm room, you are freezing me out. No, I have never had to wear pajamas since I was like seven. 67. And now I'm like, I'm buying all these pajamas because she's freezing me out. It's the only way I can sleep. I sleep

like a baby if it's freezing cold and I am up all night. Like, it just drives me crazy. And it's reminding me of when I was in the army and we'd do Aren't you happy? Drills in the middle of. For me to be like, are those good memories? In the winter, we'd have to be in a tent for three

months. No, those were not good memories. We'd have to be in a tent for three months. No, those were not good memories. Just give me a moment. I just need a moment. 67. That is my sleep temperature. Warm room is problematic for sleep. Your gadgets, turn them off.

Alcohol. All of these are bad for you. So a dark room with no noise, except sometimes we have sleep enhancing music. I don't know if I told you that I've been- Oh, you have told everybody repeatedly. Billboard's New Age Artist of the Year two years in a row because of music for Bright Minds. Even though he's never been a musician. But I create the music with my friend, Barry Goldstein. But our album, Feel Better Fast and Make It Last, I think it was like the number five album last year.

It was pretty cool. But we have sleep strategies, sleep music for you, hypnosis, as we said, and then supplements can help. All right. These are the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. Next time, we're going to talk about supplements for your brain. And I hope those of you that are watching that you engage in the challenge that we have for you. Are we getting people sending their stuff in? People, we want you to fill out your online survey each week so that we can know- Enter you. If you're better, if you want to be entered into the challenge.

I mean, come on. It's like we got great prizes. And your questions. In fact, we might have time to answer a few more questions. Why don't you look at that while I give you your tasks for week three? Okay. So one, day one, right? Do I have a mental health challenge?

There's a questionnaire to help you realize that. Download it. Fill it out. You don't have to send it in, but we just want you to say you did this. Day two is decrease your screen time even just by 15 minutes a day because screen time can mess up your sleep. Day three, get 20 minutes of sun or take 5,000 international units of vitamin D. You know, I pretty much want all of my patients to take that to get a high normal level.

Day four, find 20 foods you love that love you back. We're going to give you a handout with 100 brain healthy foods. Just circle 20. Find 20 more foods you love that love you back. Six, hypnosis for sleep. So we're actually going to give you the download. And day seven, limit sugar. And we're going to help you track that. So these are the week three tasks. Do them. And we have just a couple of minutes. Do you have a question?

Your answer? There are some great questions here. They're just hilarious. We have four minutes. Okay. So I don't even know where to start, but this is so good. Let's see. What are more foods that we can eat to give us omega-3s rather than taking supplements um which are rather expensive um i'm a huge fan of trying to take take the supplement

because you it's just a higher dose and a cleaner source it's purified right it's purified but um because you would need to eat a lot of fish basically you need to eat a lot of fish. Basically, you need to eat a lot of fish. You can get omega-3s in other sources, but they're not the right kind of omega-3s. And you're going to end up getting some omega-6s. Well, so the Monterey Bay Aquarium has an app called seafoodwatch.org. And it'll tell you the healthiest, cleanest, most sustainably raised fish. And sometimes farmed fish is okay. And they will tell you, eat this, don't eat that.

Right. But eating several servings a day, you can end up running into problems. Like several people we know who end up with high mercury levels. You just have to be careful. So that's one of the issues. Blue-green algae. But that's, again, it's a supplement. So you're into that same supplement. Somebody has a question. Where do we get the materials for

the assignments? So underneath the live class, there should be, there don't see the link to all live class SurveyMonkey. Oh, for class resources such as downloads, go to, and there's a link, endofmentalillness.com slash brain. So there's a link for you underneath the video. So there's a couple here you might want to answer. So but there's one here that's funny. What do you take when you puke when you puke when you take fish oil? So there are some people who are really sensitive to the big capsules and some people who are just super sensitive to the taste of fish oil. One thing I recommend is like a big, like say a teaspoon or a big tablespoon

of almond butter, something like that that's heavy to keep it down. It might make you feel a little better. Or have it after you eat. For me, initially, I had to like have breakfast or lunch and then I would take my supplements afterwards and they wouldn't bother me. Me too. But I need something sort of fatty and heavy to keep it down for me there are some um liquid fish oils we're actually going to have a liquid fish oil coming up uh that tastes amazing um so watch out for that coming soon this one's really good um what is which one there's a whiplash one here. How does whiplash cause brain injury and how soon would symptoms appear? If a baby or toddler suffers a head injury, do you recommend a brain scan or wait and see? Does insurance ever cover brain spec scans?

Okay, there's three questions there. Whiplash damages your brain because people think of it as a neck injury, but what's on top of your neck, it's your brain. Slams the front, slams the back. Like shaking baby. It can cause shearing, damage to blood vessels, scar tissue. And the symptoms actually may not show up for a couple of months because it takes time for the scar tissue to actually form in the brain. If a baby or toddler suffers a head injury,

if they have any neurological symptoms, the first thing is make sure they get a CT scan so that they don't have a bleed. Probably I wouldn't recommend a SPEC scan until they're about four or five. And yes, insurance often will cover SPAC, generally not for psychiatric problems, because that has nothing to do with the brain, but for things like dementia or traumatic brain injury or toxic exposure or infections, insurance companies often will cover it. Generally, you have to fuss with them a bit. All right. Well, we are out of time. We are grateful to the thousand people watching. And over this next week, we'll probably get seven or 8,000 people watching. Thank you. The end of mental illness begins with a revolution in brain health. And our goal is to create brain warriors. Please pre-order the endofmentalillness.com,

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, anywhere great books are sold. If you pre-order it and then go to endofmentalillness.com, we'll give you all sorts of gifts because we want to create brain warriors. 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, you can use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at

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