Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Ask Mayim Anything #6: Earworms, Love’s Effects on the Brain, Outgrowing Your Therapist, ADHD & Age, The Breastfeeding Bond

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

What are the effects of love on the brain? Can ADHD worsen as we age? Why do we crave certain foods at certain times? How do I know when I've outgrown my relationship with my therapist?   Mayim answers these questions and MORE on another episode of Ask Mayim Anything!   SHE BREAKS DOWN: - "Stuck Song" Syndrome, AKA "Earworms" - The correlation between head injuries and mental illness (including treatments to help!) - Sensory Processing Disorder and when to seek support for it - The differences between hyper- and hyposensitivity - Why oxytocin can lead to attachment - The effects of low levels of serotonin   PLUS we have a SPECIAL GUEST this episode.....   Nurture Neuroscientist, Infant Sleep Educator, & Doula Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum joins us to explain how breastfeeding promotes the bond between parent and child, and her TOP 5 REASONS your baby isn’t sleeping!   Mayim also tackles your ADHD questions, from why more women are being diagnosed with ADHD to the causes of exacerbated ADHD symptoms.   She also reflects on her animated voiceover roles and the risks of being friends with your therapist.   TUNE IN to see if your question was answered this episode!!!   Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum's book, The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health through the Art of Nurtured Parenting: https://a.co/d/fKZbXex BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is it normal to wake up with a song in your head lasting throughout the day? This one hits close to home. Tell us about it, Miami. I don't know what you're talking about. Stuck Song Syndrome, or also known as Earworms. I think there was a big bank theory episode about earworms. For me, it's normal, but for other people, it might not be. Or it's going to be forever, or it's going to go down in flames. That's what's in my head right now.

Just on repeat. You can tell me when it's over. What else is in there if I press shuffle? What's the next song that comes up? Watch. Boop. I don't know. Next one.

Boop. Are you going to meet me in the middle? I'm losing my mind. Just a little. Skip. Beialics breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two.

And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down. Hi, I'm I'm Biolic. I'm Jonathan Cohen. Feels weird to say my name every time I say it. You should probably talk to someone about that. I am. I will ask Maim.

Today's a good day to ask Ma'am, because today is Ask Ma'am Anything. These are our favorite episodes. These are our favorite episodes because we don't have to listen to anyone except ourselves. Miam, tell people what they're going to hear about this episode. So many great questions and answers in this episode, including the surprising correlation between childhood head injuries, and anxiety, depression, impulse control, and addiction. That's one question. Sensory processing disorder.

When is too much, too much, and when is too little too much? Also, the effects of love on the brain. We're all going to fall in love of this episode. We also have a very special and surprise guest, a second neuroscientist, here to answer questions about how breastfeeding promotes the bond between parent and child and the top five reasons your baby will not sleep.

We also have a question about, are low levels of serotonin making me crave chocolate? What is Stux Song Syndrome? Can ADHD get worse as you get older? And why are so many women being diagnosed with ADHD? Can a relationship with your therapist outlive its usefulness in therapy? And am I allowed to be friends with my therapist? All on this episode of Ask MyM Anything. Break it down.

I want to start hardcore neuroscience. deep, deep anatomy question. Luke asks, what's the correlation between head injuries and mental illness, specifically anxiety and depression? Well, Luke, if you had asked us this three years ago, we would have said, you're probably crazy, Luke. Well, there's a connection. Jonathan, we had Dr. Eamon on.

Dr. Eamon has a clinic that is all about this, and I don't need to just talk about Dr. Eamon's perspective. but even mild head injuries, even ones where you may not be losing consciousness or you may not be like, I have a concussion. Those we now know are a major factor in the development of psychiatric illnesses, including things like anxiety disorder, panic disorder. Also impulse control can affect, which has a myriad of ways that it expresses that we may not interpret as related to the head injury. I was going to say to you, what does it mean

head injury? What does it mean, you know, concussion people think about getting knocked out, but that is like maybe only the extreme part. People can have had a lot of different, getting hit by a wave too hard and being dizzy that night.

I grew up playing hockey. I was never knocked unconscious, but a lot of the time, what we called, we got our bell rung where you take a check that was too hard, or you take a check where the shoulder or elbow comes up underneath my chin. And I remember being at the dinner table and not being able to chew for a couple nights. Like literally the side of my jaw being so sore that like I was like, oh, this.

And then I'd be like, oh, yeah, we'll pass in a few days. But I now learned that that could have had an impact. Tell us what happens in the brain. Because the explanation that I got is your brain is like jello and it jiggles around a lot. it's going to hit the sides and it's going to be back for you. Well, okay, so generally speaking, I think it's worth it to talk a little bit about, you know, the massive resilience of this organ that you carry around. Like, the stuff between your ears is protected by a skull.

Like, just like you have bones in your body, there's a gigantic bone structure. That's your skull. And evolution has created. a system that knows that you're going to get banged around, you're going to get, you know, hockey is a little bit outside of, I think, the realms of what evolution maybe had in mind, but you're going to be in altercations, you're going to be fighting for survival, you're going to be up against wild animals. Like, that's mostly what we evolved kind of heading towards, right?

Not iPhones and those virtual goggle things you keep trying to explain to me. So the brain is, it's not really, it's not jello. I mean, it's, it's firm, it's got a firmness to it. Three pounds of butter. It's, it's heavier than that. I mean, I think of it like a bowling ball. Medium tofu. It's just, it's like a little bit like a medium tofu.

But it's not just like brain and skull. There's also several layers of, there's Durhamotter, there's Piomat or there's layers of cushion that are in there. However, there's also fluid. There's cerebral spinal fluid that's bathing the whole thing. Also, when you think of a brain, like, you think of like, oh, squishy gushy gelo brain, there's also blood vessels that run through the entire outer surface. Like, when you look at the brain, it's like, there's like blood vessel. It's like, you know, anyway, that was me going, remembering what it's like to pull those off. That's a scientific term for people following along. That being said, if you sustain a head injury,

your brain is still getting rocked about. It's not getting rocked about inches. It's not like every time your brain's having a whiplash experience of the brain variety. But it is moving around. And it is moving around to the point that we now have longitudinal research that is doing these elaborate scans. And I know that there's people out there who are like, that's BS. Like, that's not a thing. That used to be me.

But I am now a belief. that these kinds of even smaller traumatic brain injuries can lead to significant psychological effects. And there are a lot of different treatment centers that specifically target trying to understand how those injuries are corresponding to present-day limbic system issues, anxiety, phobias, depression. So interestingly, another thing that has been added to this canon of conversation is that, wait for it, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is one of the things that people are often being prescribed to try and speed the healing process even years after a concussion or traumatic brain injury. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The other thing a lot of people don't know is

that one cushion begets more concussions, you become more susceptible and that the effects are cumulative over time. So if you've had one, you may not have had the effects, but you're more susceptible. And as you have more and more, the possibility of having severe repercussions are much higher. When I found this out and when I found out the impact of getting your head knocked around, basically, I started watching action movies and seeing the number of times people get punched and kicked in the face and head. And I was like, you know what? We're doing a big disservice here because those people, if they actually sustained those types of impacts from a foot or a fist, they're going to have serious repercussions later on.

When professional football players started having these stories, and when the families of football players who died quite early and with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and all these things, when the families started bringing it up, they were dismissed as crazy. They were dismissed as like so outside the wrong. realms of our understanding of neuroanatomy. And indeed, we now know this is a significant thing. So imagine the sport of football. Imagine, you know, boxing all these sports that I understand people enjoy. But I like to recall that after I had my first son, I grew a tremendous distaste for football and boxing, which I previously had immensely enjoyed watching. It's like part of me

knew, the neuroscientist in me knew, this cannot be good. So we now know there are protective measures being taken. You know, everybody's like, oh, I don't want my kid in tackle football for good reason. And for those people who are like, those are American sports and you two are ridiculous and overprotective, there are often a lot of fighters who are punched drunk and who become punch drunk and who have had deterioration over time from taking repeated hits to the face and the trajectory of those activities are that the higher levels that you're competing in, the more likely it is you're going to get one of these serious injuries. I also want to mention that obviously things like meditation, things like prayer, things like

learning mindful breathing, those are things that can help if you are a person who has had these kind of either concussive or traumatic brain injuries or even smaller, you know, lowercase T traumatic brain injuries. But those are things that also just help. anxiety and depression and phobias in general. Another thing that actually Dr. Amon talked about with us, exposure to things like mold, exposure to things like alcohol and a lot of the chemicals that we take for granted

that are in sunscreen and makeup and hair products, those things have been shown to also have cumulative effects and deleterious effects on people who have these kinds of brain injuries. So something to maybe do some more research about. One other type of impact that a hand injury can cause when I mentioned impulse control is that people on the addiction spectrum, whether alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping, impulse control, poor ability to plan for the future and delay instant gratification, that can also stem from the possibility of having early head injuries in your past.

Yeah, there's tremendous research of, Patrick Carnes, you know, who's kind of the, one of the leading authorities in this arena, has astounding statistics about estimates for what percentage of addicts have sustained significant head injuries. Very, very interesting. And before you dismiss it, just remember that, again, when NFL players started talking about this and everybody dismissed it, sometimes we have to have an open mind to understand some of the impacts of things that really have significant cultural impacts as well. MyNBi Alex breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get

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And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. Jonathan, next question. So the question is, what is sensory processing disorder? It's a neurological condition in children that can affect the way the brain processes information that it senses. people with this disorder may be extra sensitive or not react to sensory input, depending on how they are affected.

Can you explain this for us? Yeah, so Z, this is a great question. And this is something that's getting a lot more attention. You know, we hear a lot of different like auditory processing disorder, and we hear kind of what used to be, you know, grouped as like learning disabilities. But sensory processing disorder, you know, can involve sensitivity to any of the senses. So, you know, visual stimuli, you know, usually light, sound, taste, touch, or smell. So those are the five biggies. And what's interesting is that, as Jonathan mentioned,

sensory processing disorder is not simply the inability to process too much information. It can also be an inability to respond appropriately to certain stimuli. So it can really be kind of either end of the spectrum. Sensory processing disorder actually isn't officially recognized by the DSM, like the diagnostic statistical manual mental disorders, which a lot of people are like, we don't need that anyway. But just for sake of conversation, there's not a lot of research-based evidence to support diagnosing this disorder on its own, which is not to say that it's not true and it's not a thing, but in terms of sort of the canon of research and, you know, sort of certifiability with the standard diagnostic criteria, it doesn't have its own diagnosis per se. So in children,

you'll often see hypersensitivity. That means oversensitivity. You know, adults as well can experience this. Just, you know, some of us cover our ears when a fire truck goes by. And that's a thing. because it's not that it's loud, it's that I feel it in my body. Like, you can feel it in your body if you have this level of hypersensitivity. What does that mean you feel it in your body? It's like, so it's not just like the sound that I hear in my ear. It's that it has like a, it has a place that it lives in my body. It's not pain.

It's not like pain perception. It feels like agitation in a place that's not just like that's too loud. It feels rattley in my body, and sometimes it feels like electricity. What did Fred call the fire truck? Wee, wee, wee-you. So you feel the wee-wee-wee-wee-deep in your soul, right in your bones, you call. You feel the wee-you-we-you. I feel the wee-wee.

He used an anamonopoeia, and he turned it into a noun. Other symptoms of sensory hypersensitivity is a low pain threshold. You know those people, those people who, like, stub their toe, and it's the like, oh my God, you thought they lost their toe. That can be sensory hypersensitivity. And it's not just that they're being dramatic. I mean, sometimes it might be that they're being dramatic. But for people with sensory hypersensitivity, it really feels different than if you just stub your toe and don't have this hypersensitivity. People with sensory hypersensitivity can also appear clumsy. Sometimes you'll see babies or young children cover their eyes when they are overstimulated. That is a form of hypersensitivity. It's

considered in the normal spectrum at certain ages, meaning that's kind of often a baby or a young child's only protection from overstimulation. Sometimes with emotional overstimulation, children will also cover their eyes or ears. It's like, make it stop. And so it's like a way to try and sort of like control the input coming in. Picky food preferences, also gagging with certain foods or certain textures. People who don't like to be hugged or touched are often hypersensitive. It's not just that they don't want to or they don't have, you know, they don't want intimacy. It could literally be that that feeling of being touched is, is uncomfortable in a way that it feels intolerable. Often people with hypersensitivity seem to overreact to touches that

seems soft. There are people on the spectrum who also have sensory processing disorder, so you may start to hear some overlap. But sometimes, you'll see a strong, what looks like an overreaction. A lot of times people with sensory hypersensitivity are accused of like making a big deal out of nothing, which can also feel really bad because in their brain, it feels completely legitimate to react that way. You'll often see kind of like attention and emotional control problems because, you know, mind and body are connected.

So all these things, when your body is affected, it's going to kind of start, you know, having an overflow in behavior. I also do want to give a strong shout out to sensory hyposensitivity. Hypo is under sensitive. These people have a high pain threshold. They may bump into walls and not really have like a sense of their place in space.

They may seek more stimulation by putting things in their mouth. Like having a strong need to like touch things a lot. They're trying to get more information. giving hugs that are too big, that can be because they can't gauge literally the pressure. This can also lead to kind of a lack of regarding other people's personal space, which I think makes sense. And also, sometimes people who are hyposensitive, they will rock and sway. They will want to create stimulatory behavior. This is different than kind of like the

self-stim or the stimming behavior that we see in individuals on the spectrum. but again, there could be overlap. What if they wear their shoes on the wrong feet? Is that hypo or hyper? You tell me, Jonathan, have you been paying attention? Myam once wore her shoes on the wrong feet for an entire hour. High heels, tight. Is that hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity?

I think it's hypo. And as you're reading the list of hyposensitivity, affectations or displays of hyposensitivity, I'm pretty much diagnosing you here. For individuals who are on the PTSD spectrum, there's often hyper sensitivity. So that's actually some of the features, like an exaggerated startle response and an inability to tolerate a lot of stimulus in auditory or visual stimulus. If I had to pick, I don't know, it kind of depends on the day for me.

Well, I also want to mention, you know, many people have sensory processing deficits or differences. It doesn't always mean that you need, you know, to see a doctor or to take a doctor. a pill or to go to therapy about it. If the behaviors are interrupting your everyday life, if you have a job where you keep bumping up against this and you can't, you kind of can't function normally in your job, that might be something to look at getting some help or support around. Also, if symptoms take a really significant turn all of a sudden, that's a time to absolutely go to a doctor, make sure that there's not, you know, ear problems or eye problems or things that are physiologically affecting your ability to process sensory information.

And obviously, if you have a child with sensory issues and it's affecting their learning, that's a time also to get some support. Very good explanations, Maim. Our next question from John, not me. What are the effects of love on the brain from a neuroscience perspective? And how can love lead to radical decision-making positive or negative? Must be love on the brain That's got me feeling this way

Okay How has love contributed to every song ever been written Most of them about codependence Lot of songs written about love Must be because of the ventral tegmental area And the angular gyrus just saying I was just thinking that So there's

There's a lot of components to love I really, John, thank you for this question. I love this question, which means a lot of parts of my brain are going to light up when I think about it. I hate to be this person, but there's so many different aspects to love that I don't think that there's one answer that like this always goes on in the brain. Because like if you're talking about lust, you're going to have more of like that kind of like dopamine kind of reward system circuitry. you know, if it's like objectively speaking, not a super healthy relationship, you're going to, you know, have more maybe of that reward and that kind of, you know, the more erotic stimulation aspects of the brain. But if we're talking about, you know, the kind of like partnership and bonding systems, those are going to be, you know, kind of a different sort of set of pathways. There's going to be a ton of overlap. Like, you don't have to just love staff or someone or want to marry.

them. Hopefully, you'll find that same person that you'd like to cohabitate with or just be with for a strong night of loving. In any event, there is reward circuitry. We've talked about the amygdala. We've talked about the hippocampus. Also, the amygdala, you know, is this center that's normally associated with panic and fear. You want to make sure that that is turned down when in a healthy, loving relationship. So, you know, there's all these different, like, positive feedback loops and negative feedback loops in these regions. And, you know, the basal ganglia, which is highly dopamine-centric, you know, that's sort of, that's that emotional system. So that's going to be, obviously, super important. Also, prefrontal cortex, you know, we normally think of that as like planning and

pre-planning, but also impulse control. So depending on kind of where we are in that love spectrum, you know, a ton of regions. Like, it's kind of like when people are like, which part of the brain does this. Like all the parts of the brain do all the things, and we have all these different association cortex, you know, regions and things like that. And in addition, if you love someone and it reminds you of something else, that's going to activate a whole other set of circuitry. If you're in an unhealthy relationship, they're starting to actually, you know, we have so much research about sort of what that's activating. What are the systems that feel so comfortable? Like, that's actually a thing in the brain. I know people want to believe, like, it's just like

chemistry, no such thing. It's like literally neurochemistry. Because everything is happening basically all at once in the brain as you're talking about and different stimuli are going to give us a different impact. Can you talk a little bit about the three main systems, the oxytocin system, the dopamine system and the serotonin system, and how those are activated? Yeah, I've actually, I've never tried to explain it in that way, but I will go ahead and do that. So oxytocin we've talked about, that's like the love hormone they call it. That's the hormone that's, you know, released during orgasm. The bonding hormone.

It's the bonding hormone. It's also responsible for like labor and also the milk ejection reflex because these are all systems that involve an opening and a contracting. Thinking about orgasm. You got to see your hands here. Like the body's, I'm sorry. The body has like redundant systems and oxytocin is one of these like incredible hormones. It's also paired with vasopressin.

And these are important for social bonding. And so also important during orgasm, if you'd like to feel bonded to that person. You know, the notion is that oxytocin is sort of that hormone for attachment. And it's often the feeling why we want to cuddle after we are having sex. Like post-coital cuddling, that's like strongly oxytoccal. and modulated. Also, if someone, you know, especially for females where orgasm is not a requirement for the act of copulation, sorry, I'm speaking like we're talking about rats. But, you know, when you have an orgasm, that shows a particular investment and a particular interaction with

your partner that can feel really good. There's some really awesome studies, fascinating studies, about women being more likely to get pregnant if they have an orgasm, oxytocin being sort of modulating that. So oxytocin we think of as the attachment hormone. Dopamine, we think of as like, like I said, the lust. That's kind of like the lust component if you want to think of it like that. That's reward. Like, I want that. I have to get it. That also is very dominant in addictive systems. And as we know, sex can be an addiction. Love can be an addiction. So that would be sort of the dopamine regulating that. And then serotonin is, you know, we think of that as sort of like the happy, just like their generic happy hormone. You know, when you hear about serotonin reuptake inhibitors,

like, you know, classic SSRIs, those are modulating serotonin. And that's going to be sort of, you know, that's, to me, it's between, it's not attachment and it's not lust. It's that other thing, it's romantic love. So serotonin is the thing that makes us feel good when we are with the other person. So we need all of these systems. And in order to perpetuate the species, we need all of these systems, you don't get to pick and choose. But as you can imagine, if you have differences in how your body processes generates or recycles these chemicals, these neurochemicals, you're obviously going to have a different template. And, you know, when you think of sort of attachment styles, you can start to see how those are kind of different words for these neurotransmitter systems.

So when you have people who are anxiously attached, Jonathan, do you want to guess maybe which hormone system we might look at if someone's anxiously attached? I'm thinking their serotonin system may not be firing. Also oxytocin, because if we're actually talking about proper attachment, yes. You said the serotonin was about feeling good around them while not having sex. So I thought potentially that is related. One thing you said that is underlying your explanation is that people can have different gene or DNA, like at that level, process these hormones and these chemicals differently so that,

for example, they may not feel the level of oxytocin. You know, when you're saying the cuddling afterwards, like those people who don't want to cuddle, for example, they want to have sex and run. What's going on with them? Just blame your DNA. Just blame your DNA. No, it is true that we now can look at the level of oxytocin receptors, dopamine receptors and processing. There's some really interesting, exciting. They tend to be quite expensive,

but there are DNA tests that can assess, basically, propensity and likelihood. And also, these are things that can shift. Reparative therapy, you know, can shift our ability to kind of, you know, move in and out of, in that example, you know, those kind of attachment styles. Thank you for explaining love to us, Maim. Anytime. Miam, we're going to do something crazy on this episode of Ask Miam Anything. We're going to ask another doctor. How do you feel about that? What?

There's not room for two doctors on this. Ask Miami anything? You're not being replaced. You're simply being augmented with an expert from Toronto nonetheless. Welcome Greer to the podcast. Oh, thank you. Dr. Kershenbaum, I believe. Yes.

Thank you, guys. It's so good to be here. And Dr. Kersenbaum, just so people know, what is your day job besides? this wonderful book that you've written, what do you do on a daily basis? And what is your PhD specifically in? Yeah. My PhD is in medical science and neuroscience. And I always did my research within the realm of mental health. So how does genetics and experience make up mental health? And my day job now, so I left academia about nine years ago, although my postdoc paper was

just published this year. So that's how fast science works. Congratulations. Sometimes. But yeah, day to day now, I'm working with families. I talk to families every day, helping them a lot with infant sleep in, you know, really, really nurturing ways. And also with, you know, all things nurture, all kinds of support and that kind of thing. And I also teach classes, workshops for parents, too. Full disclosure.

Dr. Kersenbaum and I know each other. other from our childhoods in Toronto, and it's very excited to have her here. Ma'am, tell us a little bit about Dr. Kirshenbaum and why she's here. Well, Dr. Kirshenbaum wrote a book called The Nurture Revolution, which, you know, is basically all the things that make me excited, conversations about bonding, the kind of neurohormones that we've actually been talking about in this episode. And Dr. Kirshenbaum is actually going to answer a question from H.J. And we've talked about. about it here before, but let's have the expert answer it. Here's the question. How does breastfeeding

promote the bond between mother and child? So I absolutely love breastfeeding, all things breastfeeding. My wish is for every mom who wants to breastfeed to get the support to do it, because we actually know that that's not really happening in a lot of places. And so that's one of my wishes for breastfeeding out in the world. And one of the biggest benefits is it does. really promote the bond between moms and babies. And it's incredibly beneficial for both of their developing brains. So we always usually focus on, oh, what are the benefits for the baby and, you know, all these wonderful things. But the mom is also tremendously benefiting from breastfeeding too. And so it kind of comes down to one of my favorite neurohormones,

oxytocin, neurochemicals. Oxytocin is released in both babies and moms during breastfeeding. And we think of it as like the love hormone. You know, it's released when we fall in love and when we feel safe and secure. And in this time of life, oxytocin, you know, it's so, you know, promoting of that relationship in that moment, but it's also building long-term brain structures in both babies and moms. So it's kind of magic. We were talking earlier about oxytocin's role in labor, in orgasm, and also the milk ejection

reflex. Can you just clarify this is not, it's not a pleasure hormone for all of the systems that it modulates. Can you talk a little bit about the flexibility of oxytocin? And I think Jonathan wanted to know. Jonathan, do you want to add your question to that? Yeah, after her question, I think some people are like, well, how is it doing that? And, you know, both increasing bonding and also brain structure, tell us a little bit about that. Yeah.

So there's oxytocin receptors distributed throughout the brain and body. And the way that, you know, a lot of neurochemistry works is we have to have combination, like different combinations of receptors receiving. receiving information do different things, essentially, right? So, you know, in the case of promoting bonding, we would have oxytocin receptors present in those social sprain circuits and in pleasure pathways too, right? So the oxytocin, I kind of talk about it as the oxytocin cascade,

because it's kind of the first neurotransmit. transmitter released, you know, in a cascade of others. So during pleasurable experiences, we have oxytocin, dopamine, endorphins, all of these other hormones that get released sort of in response to it. Well, others are also being released at the same time. The brain's pretty complicated. What would you say because I also want to give a shout out to people who don't breastfeed or people who adopt babies. I think it's really important for us to be clear, even as we are lactivists or as we are talking about, you know, the biological and neurophysiological components of the system, those are not the only ways that mothers can bond with babies.

So can you talk a little bit about some of the other systems that can be recruited even if you're not breastfeeding? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I always talk about, feeding with love, making that experience, also a really connected experience that is going to also be releasing oxytocin during that time is a really great opportunity to still have the touch, still have the eye contact, holding baby's hands, speaking to them and communicating. And so we can really get, you know, pretty close, you know, to the experience. we're not breastfeeding. And I think some people are concerned, right? If I'm not able to or it wasn't supported well enough to meet my breastfeeding goals, they're worried about the bond with the baby.

But there's so much, you know, there's so many other ways that we're building our bond with our baby too, right? Breastfeeding is incredible. It's incredible for, like we talked, like mentioned, building the emotional systems that underlie our lifelong mental health and physical health. both babies and parents, but breastfeeding is not the only part of that equation. It's so much more the responsive relationship between parents and their babies, right? And that includes non-breastfeeding parents, parents who are never going to breastfeed, right? So, yeah, I always recommend, you know, thinking about that, thinking about feeding with love, with closeness, and touch. because touch also releases oxytocin and that whole cascade, right?

Skin to skin touch, eye contact releases it, holding baby's hand, speaking kind words. It can all be, you know, a beautiful experience. Just before we let Dr. Grishenbaum go, top five things people don't know about why their baby isn't sleeping. Yeah. Well, oh my gosh. Lighting is very important. circadian input for babies and adults, very important. Using babies tired cues to time when they're sleepy for naps and bedtime.

They can be overtired. Yes, yes. And not controlling the sleep, like lots of people are waking babies up from naps, trying to really, you know, control it tightly. That interferes with sleep as well. relationship is a big part when we're really responsive and connected. Sleep is often better. You mean, hold on a second.

You mean the relationship with the baby or the parents? The parent and the baby. So like a really connected bedtime, we see in studies that there's less waking up, you know, especially for older kids. Okay. And then what's the fifth one? Movement. Movement. So important.

getting enough time, free play, that kind of stuff is really important for sleep, too. Here's my favorite reason that babies don't sleep. They just don't want to. Yeah, they, they, yes, they're on their, they're doing their own thing, for sure. They're on their own schedule. The nurture revolution, we highly recommend it. It teaches so many aspects also that we don't realize they're actually built into our physiology. So, thank you so much for for being here. And I am not resentful at all, Jonathan, that you brought on another doctor. Next question, Maim. What happens when someone has very low serotonin? Can this cause them to crave chocolate often? Amanda asks, and this right now is making me want to get chocolate. I may have to

take a break from the podcast. I mean, a lot of things happen when people have low levels of serotonin. You know, we often will see reports of depression and anxiety. And I mean, it's a little bit of like a it's a circuitous kind of diagnosis because what usually happens is people are put on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which basically increase the amount of serotonin that is circulating, and they feel better. But people like Johan Hari and a lot of other studies are showing that there's a strong placebo effect and also not an enduring impact of SSRIs, which is like a topic for a other time, but it's not like chocolate has serotonin in it, and that's why you're craving it.

What I will say is that when we do have cravings for foods, it is often it's sweet things, it's sugary foods, it's carb foods. You know, when we talk about comfort foods, those are things that do help with mood regulation. So having like a high carb, you know, meal or snack can raise levels of serotonin. And so those are actually things that we might crave in that case. But also, this is just like a really kind of like, might sound like a lame explanation. When we don't feel good, we want things that make us feel good. And chocolate makes us feel good.

It makes us feel good because it's sugar and sugar is fun. But also, it's something that's like, it's one of the more intensely pleasurable foods. Like, if you're a chocolate person, like, that's when we look. to food to try and feel better. So I don't know that it's necessarily like, oh, low serotonin, got to get that chocolate. For some people, it's different things. You know, I'm sure you know, some people are salty people, some people are crunchy people. You know, like, Jonathan, what's your go-to comfort food? I mean, as a kid, it used to be cheese. Now it's probably sweet. Which is, okay, so cheese is fat and salt. Yeah. And now sweets. But like I, like, I'll eat a French

fry any day of the week. And if you were to offer me like a piece of chocolate cake or French fries, there's something about like the crunch of the fries and like the greasy and the salty that's more comforting to me than chocolate. But I will also eat chocolate cake. More comforting in the short term, bellyache in the long term. Is it normal to wake up with a song in your head lasting throughout the day? I guess it depends on the song. Is it also normal? normal to hear the song in your dreams or even to compose music in your dreams, a different Amanda asks.

This one hits close to home. Tell us about it, Miami. I don't know what you're talking about. So this is called Stuck Song Syndrome, or also known as Earworms. I think there was a big bang theory episode about earworms, if I remember correctly. Stuck Song Syndrome is a thing.

There's some, not a ton in the least, literature about this. Not surprisingly, this is often an extension of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It's essentially an auditory obsession. Sometimes it can have compulsive features as well, as we've talked about, obsessive-compulsive disorder requires an obsessive component and a compulsive component. So both can be present for Stuxong syndrome. You know, for me, normal, but for other people, it might not be. So it's a quality of OCD, you're saying, just that obsessiveness or like the fixation? What it is is that, you know, in a mind that tends towards obsessions and compulsions,

you know, there's value assigned, you know, there's value assigned to things that take up space so that you feel better. And so there's compulsive acts that are done to sort of make obsessive feelings and thoughts not as prominent. So what it is is essentially an auditory compulsion. And, you know, for people with stuck song syndrome, there's going to be varying degrees of it. But, you know, for some people, there may be a compulsive nature to it. Like, you can't interrupt the song. You have to finish the song or you have to do the song in a certain way or else something will happen. Those are things that kind of fall on that spectrum. Or it's going to be forever

Or it's going to go down in flames That's what's in my head right now Just on repeat You can tell me when it's over What else is in there If I press shuffle What's the next song that comes up Watch

Boop I don't know Next one Boop Are you gonna meet me in the middle I'm losing my mind Just a little Skip

When I was eight or nine years old my family took a trip to Philadelphia from Toronto and we drove. I think it was like a 12-hour drive. And for a good eight hours straight, I sang, Harvey's makes your hamburger a beautiful thing, which was the commercial lyric at the time. And I'm sure my parents wanted to kill me.

No one wants that. But now I think about it, I was binding anxiety. I didn't know where I was going or was trapped in the car with all those people, wanting attention. Can ADHD get worse in your 40s, especially for women? And I'm going to add a component to Jamie's great question.

Why is it that so many more women these days are getting diagnosed with ADHD? Well, I don't know that I can answer that definitively. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about, not surprisingly, smartphones, you know, contributing to a lot of different behaviors in women that, in many cases can look like ADHD, I think it's important to realize that, while ADHD isn't something that we typically think of as like getting worse, meaning it's not like a progressive disease, what is true is that if unaddressed, the things that are leading to an exacerbation of symptoms can get worse, meaning if left untended to, the root causing.

or things that might be aggravating your ADHD, those can feel cumulative. So it's not progressive in and of itself, but the things that might be making it worse if they're not being addressed, that's going to, in many ways, lead to an exacerbation and progression of symptoms. You know, anyone who has ADHD knows that it's not an all-or-nothing diagnosis,

and that's one of the things that especially is the parent of teenagers that I get really worried about when I hear teenagers like, I have ADHD. That's who I am, you know? And then when you ask them, like, are you drinking coffee or other stimulants? Yes, tons, right? Are you smoking? Yeah, of course.

You know. Are you sleeping? No, not at all. Right. Are you going to bed at one and waking up at six and wondering why your symptoms, you know, have become, you know, for many teenagers, a real moniker. And I totally get it. I was a teenager.

Like, I have teenagers. We want to identify. is a thing and diagnoses are rampant on TikTok and on all of these platforms. But the fact is there's a lot of ways to manage the symptoms of ADHD. And I can say just for me, you know, the more time I am on my smartphone, why am I calling it a smartphone like I'm 90? The more time I spend on my phone, even if I'm not using social media platforms, just toggling between like checking my texts or checking Slack, which is where we do a lot of our work and checking emails, that stimulates my brain to require more stimulation. I will look a lot more like my ADHD is ruling my life if I am

allowed to have free access to my phone any time of day. I'll give you an example. Sometimes I'll text you and I know that you're there, but you may not reply right away. When I'm waiting for that reply, I then check three other apps trying to kill time, and I have no purpose to be on those apps. And I catch myself, I'm being like, what am I doing? Really bad for your brain. And I'm just like jumping, jumping, jumping. And I recognize like, that is not a healthy activity. Let's go to one of your favorite topics. Therapy. Yay. Can a relationship outlive its usefulness in therapy? Now, when I think about that, I'm like, is it the relationship? I'm like, is it the relationship with a therapist is a couple going to therapy. We don't know yet, but Svetlana

asks, after three years with my helpful therapist, I want to switch therapist because I feel like I know everything she will say. I was very surprised to learn that you have had a therapist for 20 years. You know, I can relate to Svetlana because, you know. Okay, Svetlana, that feels a little judgy. I can relate to Svlatlana, knowing exactly what her therapist would say, because I often ask myself, what would Mime say right now? And usually I know what the answer is. This is a really great question. And at first, I was like, it's a little judgey, Svetlana. But then I realize that a lot of people, you know, when they look at a psychoanalytical therapeutic relationship, you know, it doesn't make sense to them. And the fact is, for a lot of

kinds of therapy, yeah, you wouldn't want to go for 20 years. That probably wouldn't be what you're doing. the kind of therapy that people do when they tend to have longer-term therapists usually involves really, you know, often like complicated childhoods or, you know, complicated lives that have a lot of different dimensions that, you know, get processed over time. And it's less like what is the therapist going to sort of like do or fix and more about the process by which you have, you know, an observer. And yeah, it's someone that you're paying. Like, it's not a friend. It's not the same thing.

But there is, there's a lot of, you know, if you're interested in kind of psychoanalysis, like there's a lot of literature about what that relationship is like. And a lot of people, that's not for them. The fact that you feel like you know everything your therapist's going to say, I guess my question would be like, are you utilizing those things? And is your life significantly better to the point that you don't feel like you need a therapist? If that's the case, then you may not need to be with that therapist. But what I think a lot of us realize is that as life kind of bumps along, different things

that we maybe haven't dealt with before will keep surfacing in times in our life, like when parents start aging, when friendships shift, when romantic relationships change. And so those often will bring up things that we have not unearthed. if you feel like you're smarter than your therapist, get a smarter therapist. And I'm not just saying that to be flippant. But you want to be with someone whose training and experience can see things that you can't. So it may not be that you've outlived this relationship with your therapist. It could be that it's no longer a match for what you're looking for. And I think it's also important when you go to therapy to talk about what your goals are, meaning do you want to have more successful?

relationships. Do you want to have more self-esteem? Do you feel like there's things that aren't working in your life and you can't figure out why? Do you have trauma that you haven't talked about? So these are all those sorts of things. I'll be honest, like, even after 20 years, like, there's some stuff that it's clear that my therapist understood that I really wasn't ready to understand until much later in my life. And so that's been, you know, kind of an interesting journey. And, you know, sometimes I fantasize about like, what if I just? started over. It's like having a new friend. But then it's like, no, I want to stick with the person who, you know, kind of knows my history, knows a lot of the components of the things that I'm

constantly working on and constantly working towards. And also, if I wasn't making progress, I think that would be really bad. And some of you might look at me and be like, your hair is a mess. Is that how you wanted to show up today? That's still progress for me. It's a great segue into, is it ever okay to start seeing your psychotherapist as a personal friend? A different Amanda asks. Also, I think we've had three Amanda's in this. We are not biasing our questions to only people named Amanda. I mean, short answer?

No. It is never okay to start seeing your therapist as a personal friend. Are they still in therapy? That's what I wasn't sure about in this question. Have you maintained the therapeutic relationship? Either way. Either way. Let's assume they're no longer your therapist, like maybe Svetlana leaves her therapist.

Let's assume that they're not. But even if they are, this is also true. Therapists are ethically bound not to take on clients who already are friends, a dual relationship. It can be a lot of conflict, and they can also lose their license. But this is kind of interesting. It's almost impossible for a therapist. to live up to the expectations of the relationship that was established even unconsciously outside

of therapy. I mean, it's also just, I'm sure it's happened and I'm sure people will be like, I did it and it worked, or we got married. Like, that's great, but generally speaking, you would have to start learning about your therapist as a person with needs with a family history of their own. It's generally not a great idea. It's just, that's like a hard no for me. I don't know if I'm just being conservative. They're not going to be as good a listener as they were when they were your therapist. 100%. They're going to be like that friend who's like, oh my God, seriously? There's also the possibility that any confidence you had in their support or analysis of you could really be upset by having to enter into a, quote, normal relationship with them.

Meaning, you can't talk to a friend. I mean, some friends, I guess you can, but you don't want a relationship where you're talking to a friend for 50 minutes. every week about the same thing over and over. So if your therapist in a friend relationship would be like, I don't want to hear this anymore, it might bring up, like, for real, gosh, what was it like for them to listen to me all that time? Am I worth being listened to? You know what? I don't get tired of my name.

What? Listening to you. And in the spirit of continuing to listen to you, I have a very personal question from Adam, another A, but we'll let it slide. after Blossom, you took a few voice acting roles on animated programs. Would you ever want to play a main or recurring character in an animated series? Yeah, I actually did a lot of voiceover work even before Blossom.

I started acting when I was 11 and actually did quite a bit of voiceover work. I used to be often cast as a little boy. If you think about what my voice sounded like when I was 11 or 12 and even into 13 and 14, there was a certain, there was a quality to it, and I was often cast as a little boy. But I do love voiceover work. I love voiceover work for the same reason that I love podcast work. I don't have to do hair and makeup. I can just, you know, it's like a come-as-you-are situation.

And I do love animated projects, and it's something I do hope to be involved with in the future. I've got a couple projects, actually, that I'm working on that would involve producing and also being a voice actor in those things. I'd like to see you as an animated evil genius trying to take over the podcast world. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Ask Myam Anything. And again, shout out to Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum, who wrote the Nurture Revolution, which we highly recommend.

If you haven't Asked MyM Anything, you can submit it at Bialikbreakdown.com. We also accept those questions on Instagram, Bialik Breakdown on Instagram. If you haven't already subscribed to the show, you can do so anywhere you get podcasts. And on YouTube, click the little bell notification

to get updates for new episodes. And as always, make sure to subscribe to the channel. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my and biolix breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two.

One fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown.