Change Your Brain Every Day - You Can Train Your Brain To Have Better Relationships

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

In Dr. Daniel Amen’s new book, Feel Better Fast and Make It Last, he stresses the importance your relationships have on your everyday well-being. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Amen and his wife Tana give you advice on how to be more responsible and empathic in your treatment  of those closest to you in order to improve relationships.

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 Warrior's Way podcast. Welcome back. We're talking about feel better fast and make it last. It's based on the mnemonic I created, BrainXL. In order to feel better fast, you have to optimize the physical functioning of your brain and we taught you how to do it you then have to get your mind programmed properly you have to discipline your mind and what we're going to talk about in this next series of podcasts

are your relationships so it's attachments because one of the things I've learned is when your relationships aren't right, you're not right. That is the fastest way to feel worse. And if you want to feel better fast, you want to get your relationships right. So it's really interesting. In church, we actually, the last time, last week was all about community and relationships and about how much, I didn't realize how many times throughout the Bible, it talks about how much we need each other. I was like, wow, that's really interesting. But it's like very clear. It talks about how important it is to be together as a community, you know, relationships, how people need each other i think so many of us tend to think oh i

can do this on my own but it's not healthy for us a relational species we are a bonded species we desperately need each other to survive um we're not polar bears no and we're not wired and social isolation right and loneliness are actually risk factors for Alzheimer's disease. But we've begun to think it's cool in this era, this time, like, oh, I like to be alone. I'm going to stay single. And it's interesting, though, that they tend not to be as healthy. People who are single tend not to be as healthy. Well, that's not completely true so men who are married live longer than men who are not married in large part

because their wives harass them to stay healthy to do the right thing but women who are married according to one study did not live as long as women who are not married because they didn't have the stress of having to get the other guy healthy yeah but it depends on who you're married to because you take really good care of me. You make me my little cappuccino in the morning and you don't stress my life out. So it depends on who you're married to. Totally. Yeah.

Right? But what I've learned is you are powerful. And if you're in a bad relationship, there are a lot of things you can do to make that relationship worse. You know that's true. Oh, so we're on the hallway. There's a lot of things you can do to make that relationship worse you know that's true oh so we're on the whole lot of things you can do to make it better so we're out the hallway i'm holding my brand new little niece and she's two weeks old and um my my niece who just had this baby says oh she can go from like sleeping to screaming in two seconds flat. And Daniel goes, well, so can my wife. You want to see? You're such a brat. It just shows how powerful we are in our relationships.

Now, I don't choose to get Tana screaming at me. But, you know, the fact that I know I can get her to scream at me means I can also get her to smile at me. I can also get her to smile at me. Right. I can also get her to kiss me. I can also get her to love me. I think I can count on one hand how many times you have done that in 13 years. You're a fast learner.

I'm a fast learner. Right. Right. And the pain is overwhelming. Right. So pair-bonded species, relationships. and you have power are incredibly important and in feel better fast um i don't know i was like going crazy with all the mnemonics and feel better fast But when it comes with relationships, I like relating. You know, so R-E-L-A-T-I-N-G.

And so we're going to talk about that in these podcasts. And the R in relating, you want to have great relationships? It's responsibility. What's your role? If you're a victim, as we talked about with the aunts, you're not going to have good relationships. So I went through a very hard divorce before I met you. And one of the reasons I went to therapy for almost two years wasn't because I hated him so much. I mean, my divorce was hard. That wasn't the reason. Yes, it was to get over some of that stuff. Mostly it was because I didn't want to carry that on, number one, to my daughter

and number two, into the rest of my life if I ever did get married again because I thought I was going to have to stay single forever. But one of my aunts. Fortune telling. Right. But if I did meet someone, the last thing I wanted to do was take my part of it into that relationship. That's you need to take responsibility for your part or you'll never be happy. So what is it I can do today to get what I want? Now you first have to define what you want. And on our podcast, we've talked about the one page miracle on one piece of paper, write down what you want. That's actually in the inspiration part of this book. But if I'm really clear what I want in my relationships,

then I ask myself, well, does it fit? If I say this, does it fit? If I do this, does it fit? And I'm really clear on what I want with 10. I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. And I always feel, I always want that. But I don't always feel that way, right? If I haven't slept, if I'm stressed, you know, I'll get a bad thought in my head. And if my frontal lobes are working right, I will catch myself and I'll go, does that comment fit the goals I have for my life? And if it doesn't fit, I don't say it, right? There's,

where were we? We were someplace recently and the person said, oh, we're in church. And he said, you should always have honesty. And you almost fell out of your chair. You're like, no, you shouldn't. You absolutely should not say everything you think. But that's different than, that's different. So not saying it is different than lying. It's omission, but it's different.

You don't need to say something mean just to say something mean, just don't say it. So she says, how do I look in this skirt? You should not say you look like the back of a school bus. That's what he said to it. He said that to someone else. Anyways, I mean, there's, it's, it needs to be filtered. What you say needs to be filtered through the goals you have for your life. And there are kind ways to say things if you are sophisticated enough. And if you're not, just don't say it. And often when you do that to me, when I say, you know, how do I look in this? If I don't think you look great in it,

I'll go, what do you want me to say? I've learned, what do you want me to say? Because then you'll go, oh, you don't really like it or I want you to tell me the truth. And I want you to be honest. Because they don't always want you to be honest. Oh, no, no, I want you to be honest. But there's a way to say it.

You could say, well, you have other things I like better. That's being honest in a nice way, right? There are other things in your closet I like better. And I often tell my patients there are ways to say things. Right. And there are ways to say things. Right. And that's why you need a healthy brain to have a healthy relationship.

What our friend Earl Hensland often says, if there's no forethought, there is no foreplay. And so thoughtfulness is very important. And so I want you in your major relationships, write down what it is you want. Not what you don't want. I don't want this. I don't want that. No. I want you to focus on what do you want and then I want you to ask yourself, does my behavior, does my behavior get me what I want? Yeah. The E in relating is empathy. It's being able to see things from another person's point of view, not just your own.

And this is what autistic kids and adults often lack. And there's actually a system in the brain for empathy. It's deep in your frontal lobes. It's called the mirror neuron system. And you're able to sort of have a sense what is going on in someone else's head. And so you can adjust your behavior. Now, you can't read their mind, as we talked about in the rational mind section, but constantly understanding what's going on with the other person is so important to relationships.

Because without empathy, your relationship's not nearly going to be as good. Yeah, Chloe's actually oddly good with empathy for a teenager, for someone her age? Well, there are actually people called empaths who are loaded with empathy. There are actually medical empaths. Judith Orloff is one who can literally read the health of other people. Now, I can't do that. But working on help me understand this. You stay with us. We're going to talk more about relationships and relating so you can improve

the quality of your relationships to feel better faster. 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 Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook we give away every month.