In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way, Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen turn once again to some “Brain in the News” topics to weigh in from a neuroscience perspective. This episode features such newsworthy topics as Bill Clinton’s affair and anxiety, Bebe Rexha opening up on being bipolar, problems with the safety claims of BPA-free products, the mental health of a potential mass shooter, and a study on the positive effects of saffron.
Dr Daniel Amen: Welcome to the Brain Warrior's Way Podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen.
Tana 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.
Dr Daniel Amen: The Brain Warrior's Way Podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain SPECT imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.
Tana Amen: The Brain Warrior's Way Podcast is also brought to you by Brain MD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com.
Dr Daniel Amen: Welcome back. We are so grateful you are here. In this podcast we're going to talk about brain in the news. I mean, we've been talking about coronavirus that's clearly in the news and will be in the news. But first let me read a review from Lewis. Thank you for connecting the gut to the brain. Didn't we just talk about it?
Tana Amen: We just did it again!
Dr Daniel Amen: And enhancing how all other pieces of our lives are connected, also. Electronics, stress, scripture, exercise, friendships, you have found a niche in my life and I am so grateful. Well, we are grateful Lewis to you. If you leave a review or a comment or a question, we'll enter you into a raffle to win a signed copy of either to Tana's cookbook, the brain Warrior's way cookbook, or my new book, the end of mental illness. So brain in the news, so coronavirus is in the news. No question, but it's not the top news story. It's...
Tana Amen: Interesting.
Dr Daniel Amen: There's a new docu-series out with Bill and Hillary Clinton called Hillary. And when he said he had his affair with Monica Lewinsky, he did it to manage his anxieties. And in the doc he said that he had oral sex with Monica to ease pressures of the job and he feels terrible. The scandal defined her life and confessing to Chelsea was the absolute worst.
Dr Daniel Amen: Have we ever thought about this? If I said I had an affair to manage my anxiety...
Tana Amen: What do you think?
Dr Daniel Amen: I'm not thinking it would go very well.
Tana Amen: Do you think your anxiety would be decreased by having an affair?
Dr Daniel Amen: Actually, I don't. So what are...
Tana Amen: You don't even know the definition of anxiety. Let's just put it that way.
Dr Daniel Amen: I do.
Tana Amen: Have you ever had your skin peeled off your body? That would be...
Dr Daniel Amen: Just so everybody knows...
Tana Amen: "Just so everybody knows."
Dr Daniel Amen: If I'm dead, I didn't do it.
Tana Amen: But he deserved it.
Dr Daniel Amen: So seriously, what did you...
Tana Amen: Seriously.
Dr Daniel Amen: What did you think when you heard that?
Tana Amen: It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. If you cannot, I'm just going to be honest, I don't care what your politics are, if you cannot control yourself in the Oval Office, what are you doing being the president of the United States, it's not a good excuse. Figure out a way outside the Oval Office to manage your life. That is not a good excuse. That was a cop out and it's not going to work. So just FYI.
Dr Daniel Amen: You know I love you.
Tana Amen: I do know, I do know you love... He might love Hillary. It still isn't going to work. So...
Dr Daniel Amen: No, I'm not going to use it as an excuse.
Tana Amen: No, I know you're not.
Dr Daniel Amen: There is not a good excuse to hurt deeply someone you cared about.
Tana Amen: Yeah, that was just a cop out. That was a power over thing.
Dr Daniel Amen: It's...
Tana Amen: Nothing more.
Dr Daniel Amen: Often associated with very low frontal lobe.
Tana Amen: Yeah, that was an ego-powerful thing.
Dr Daniel Amen: Because, what I often tell my patients over and over, we talk about these two words. Then what? If I do this, then what happens? If I say this, then what happens? If I eat this, then what happens?
Tana Amen: At least with me, you know what happens then.
Dr Daniel Amen: Because you're constantly reminding me.
Tana Amen: Yes!
Dr Daniel Amen: Constantly supervising my frontal lobes and even though we play a lot on the podcast, you know we actually have a great relationship in large part, I think because we do trust each other and trust comes from consistent behavior over time.
Tana Amen: That's true.
Dr Daniel Amen: But they're way better ways as Tana mentioned, to manage your anxiety from diaphragmatic breathing, to writing down your negative thoughts, to listening to music, to exercise, it's so important. And you know, I basically spent my whole block feel better fast and make it last. Talking about ways to feel better now and later versus what happened with Clinton is now, but clearly not later, because it's one of the things that defined his marriage, his relationship with his child and his presidency. So learning how to manage your anxiety in healthy ways is just a critical human skill. I mean we all have anxiety and now in the time of coronavirus and divisive politics, it clearly is up. Bebe... I actually don't know how to say this. Bebe Rexha talks about living with bipolar disorder for the first time, I decided to open up and free myself and that's happening more and more with celebrities that... I'm in the new docu-series with Justin Bieber that he opened up.
Tana Amen: And it's really nice when they do that because it really makes it... Somehow, it makes it safer and okay for their frame, their fans to... It normalizes it somehow. So...
Dr Daniel Amen: Well, I'm going to be on the Mel Robbins show this week and we scanned her and we're going to talk about the scan and she has all sorts of reasons for the scan that she had, including a bad car accident when she was 19 and had amnesia after the accident. She was hit by a car actually. So, there's another article that came out. Think all BPA free products are safe? Not so fast, scientists.
Tana Amen: Interesting.
Dr Daniel Amen: So, that was really interesting. Let me go to the article. Not so fast. This was published in the proceedings of the national Academy of sciences. And so, for decades, scientists have studied BPA extensively and found it's associated with all sorts of problems and it's found in plastics and in a lot of cans. It plays a role in early pregnancy loss, placental diseases, negative health effects after birth. And so there are a lot of companies that came up with BPA free products, but they replaced it with BPS, this fennel S. And what they found is the replacement is still not safe.
Tana Amen: Oh, interesting.
Dr Daniel Amen: It's been associated that it's been found to go through the mother's placenta in mice. They found that it can cause health problems as well. And so, what do you do?
Tana Amen: So I have a question.
Dr Daniel Amen: And let me just go back to what do you do is you think of glass containers as better, and you certainly don't microwave things in plastic.
Tana Amen: Yeah, I know, that makes sense. But why is it that in Europe, the FDA, the way their FDA works is products have to be found to be safe before they are approved. And with our system, they have to be found to be harmful before they will make them...
Dr Daniel Amen: Ban them.
Tana Amen: Ban them.
Dr Daniel Amen: And it really seems backwards.
Tana Amen: It does.
Dr Daniel Amen: But when possible, it's not possible to get rid of all the plastics in your life, but work and store things in glass containers.
Tana Amen: Yeah, I know it's hard when you're traveling and stuff like that.
Dr Daniel Amen: But then in plastic containers, there's another news feature. UPS worker planned a mass shooting and had 20,000 rounds of ammo and weapons. So police found tactical backpacks with ammunition staged at the suspect's California apartment. He was a UPS worker. Authorities searched his home and Thomas Andrews, 32 was arrested on suspicion of evading police, driving under the influence and several weapons violations. And the reason we're bringing this up, because this is a story that happens over and over again, that people who worked with him noticed that something wasn't right and they reported him to the authorities. So when you notice things aren't right, when people are talking about violence, when their behavior is off, it's so hard because often you'll report nothing happens but in this case...
Tana Amen: Or people don't want to... People are so afraid to say anything because they're like, "Well I didn't want to be mean. I didn't want to snitch. I didn't want to..." They don't want to hurt someone because they don't want to be wrong. But you tend to know in your gut when something is wrong. I always tell our girls, our two nieces and our daughter. It's like, listen to your gut. Apologize later if you're wrong, I mean don't... Pay attention, think for yourself. Don't be that sheep person who we talked about before. Don't be a sheep, don't follow everybody else cause that's just as bad. Don't just follow a crowd just because think for yourself. But thinking for yourself means standing up and going "I might be wrong on this, but my gut is telling me that this isn't right and I'm going to be the one that says something even if it's uncomfortable for me."
Dr Daniel Amen: And sometimes you can report it anonymously to the HR person at work, or even to the legal authorities. Better to say something than not to say something. I think that's the point of that story. You know, I mentioned divisive politics and during the time of a crisis is not the time to have devices.
Tana Amen: It's so not. I didn't turn the news on...
Dr Daniel Amen: Politics in terms of time to come together as much as you can and the thing about what's going on in a country and how it's not helpful, but when there is a crisis at home, the more you can come together, forgive each other, really help with the communication, the better it is. One more study that just came out this morning. We have a brand new product at Brain MD called Happy Saffron and saffron has so many scientifically validated benefits from mood and memory and sexual function. It's been shown to help with PMS and there are a group of studies on eye health.
Dr Daniel Amen: Well, there's a brand new study that just came out on waist circumference and blood sugar metabolism and so Happy Saffron. So I've been taking three of them a day because I'm like, with all this benefit, I mean I'm not depressed, I'm generally pretty happy. But I like that it's going to support my eyes and my blood sugar, which can be high if I don't pay attention to it. And so this group of researchers from Iran and a lot of the studies on saffron actually come because they grow a lot of it in the world. And they did a comprehensive systematic review of all of the studies looking at weight and blood sugar and they found nine articles containing 595 people. And their study found waist circumference was significantly reduced and fasting blood sugar was reduced following the saffron intervention.
Tana Amen: Interesting.
Dr Daniel Amen: And I'm like, give me some of that.
Tana Amen: Yeah, that's interesting.
Dr Daniel Amen: And so the studies, it's about 30 milligrams, which is in our new Happy Saffron, why I have a separate, well it's not just saffron, but it has the dosages used in a number of the studies that was found to be helpful for teenage mood issues, significant improvement and the elderly mood issues, significant improvement.
Tana Amen: So is it decreasing inflammation, also?
Dr Daniel Amen: Well, we don't know, but in our Happy Saffron product, there's the therapeutic dose of saffron plus 400 milligrams of curcumins, which decreases inflammation and zinc, which actually helps them work better.
Tana Amen: Interesting.
Dr Daniel Amen: And so I'm pretty excited, I don't think we've actually formally launched Happy Saffron, but it's coming soon and I have it and I'm taking it. Anyways, brain in the news. Thank you for listening to us. If you like this podcast, please post it on any of your social media. I mean, just one thing you learned today, maybe saffron could make you happy and post it on any of your social media sites. Tag us, leave a question or review a comment at Brain Warrior's way podcast.com and we'll enter you into a raffle to win either a copy of Tana's cookbook, the Brain Warrior's Way cookbook, or a copy of my new book and of mental illness, stay with us. We're going to answer your questions next.
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