Practical Tips For Coronavirus Prevention

Dr Daniel Amen and Tana Amen BSN RN On The Brain Warrior's Way Podcast

With the increase of global panic over the spread of the coronavirus, many are left with uncertainty as to what they can do. One crucial measure to take is to shore up your immune system. In the second episode of a series on the reaction to pandemic, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen give you practical tips to strengthen your immune system today.

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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 BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com.
Tana Amen: Welcome back. We are talking about Coronavirus, how you can protect yourself, what you can do. And today, we're going to talk about how you can boost your immune system.
Dr Daniel Amen: But before we do, I want to read a testimonial. We love-
Tana Amen: We do.
Dr Daniel Amen: ...when you leave reviews, even ones when you say you don't like us because it helps us bring you the content that you want. This podcast's been growing like crazy and great for that. So when you leave a review, we enter you into a drawing for a free book, for Tana's cookbook. I suppose I should be signing The End of Mental Illness now, and let them have a free drawing for that as well. So leave your preference on which book you want.
Dr Daniel Amen: From Melissa [inaudible 00:01:44], you had cancer three times, "Why don't people know who you are? Thank you for sharing your knowledge, you and Dr. Amen."
Tana Amen: Tell them.
Dr Daniel Amen: So they're talking about Tana, "You and Tana and Dr. Amen are so underrated. The whole world should know this couple as a household name."
Tana Amen: Please tell them. We are hoping that you will share this information, share the podcast. If you would, please post on social media or on our websites, on our social media sites, a question about what you are fearful of about Coronavirus or something that you've learned about it. Any question you have really. How to boost your immune system? A question you have or something you've learned that you want to share. But post something. What's on your mind? We would love to hear more about it, and we love to talk about it. We'll answer it during our question and answer section.
Dr Daniel Amen: Okay, so Coronavirus again, a common group of viruses that can cause infection in your nose, sinuses, throat, some are mild and simply produce symptoms like the common cold, runny nose, sore throat, fever. Other types, as we talked about, are more severe. You may remember SARS or MERS that killed 100s of people.
Dr Daniel Amen: In early 2020, the World Health Organization identified a deadly new strain of the virus. The 2019 Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19, also referred to as the Wuhan, where it started Coronavirus. So to date, it has infected, I think now and by the time this airs it'll be more, 120,000 people worldwide, and there's been over 3000 deaths. China, Italy, Iran, have been hit particularly hard.
Dr Daniel Amen: It's transmitted from human to human, and symptoms appear within a couple of days up to 14 days from the time of exposure. The symptoms, cold-like symptoms, shortness of breath, that seems to be one of the hallmarks of it, cough and fever. Most people, it's mild symptoms and then they recover. It's when your immune system is compromised that people can have the most problems. It's one of the reasons every day I take 7,000 units of vitamin D.
Tana Amen: Me too.
Dr Daniel Amen: Because vitamin D helps to support your immune system. There are three big strategies I want to talk about and then we have a lot of sub-strategies. But during a global epidemic like this, you want to shore up your immune system.
Dr Daniel Amen: One, lower your stress. Freaking out about a pandemic raises stress, which actually hurts your immune system, making you more vulnerable to infections. Techniques that we talk about such as diaphragmatic breathing, prayer, meditation, listening to calming music, warming your hands, hypnosis, guided imagery, all can be helpful.
Tana Amen: Yeah, I agree. So having a strategy for stress, and I think when, especially for people who travel a lot for work, I would also throw in there think about which trips you might be able to cancel. Sometimes you can't cancel your trips. But that stresses people out because when you're traveling a lot it automatically increases your stress load. But canceling trips that you might... You canceled one because it just wasn't a necessary trip. You have trips that are necessary. So canceling the ones that are not necessary will decrease your stress load as well. Because when you travel, it also affects your sleep and that will increase your stress load. So I think that's really important.
Dr Daniel Amen: So working on your stress, eat foods that boost the immune system. Foods that are a natural immunity booster, including onions, mushrooms-
Tana Amen: Garlic.
Dr Daniel Amen: ... shiitake, white button, portobello mushrooms, garlic. So I'm thinking of a stir fry.
Tana Amen: You can also take aged garlic as a supplement. Some people just don't like garlic or they just can't handle that much garlic. So taking an aged garlic supplement can be helpful.
Dr Daniel Amen: Vitamin C rich foods, oranges, berries, peppers, dark leafy greens. So now again, I'm thinking of the stir fry. Maybe coconut oil or avocado oil, peppers, dark leafy vegetables, mushrooms, [crosstalk 00:06:54]-
Tana Amen: Smoothie.
Dr Daniel Amen: ... onions, garlic. No, the garlic does not sound like a smoothie.
Tana Amen: No, no, no, the green leafy vegetables and some berries and-
Dr Daniel Amen: Vitamin D rich foods, fatty fish, so put some salmon in there, eggs, tuna. Zinc rich foods, oysters, beef, lamb, spinach, asparagus, sesame and pumpkin seeds. Selenium rich foods like Brazil nuts, seeds, grass fed meats. I'm just thinking this, if you have a smoothie for breakfast, an immune boosting smoothie and a stir fry for lunch-
Tana Amen: That was my day yesterday. So yesterday I had a smoothie for breakfast, just like what we talked about with some berries and some greens in it. I was so busy for lunch, I didn't have time to make much for lunch. So I threw together a little wild salmon, a can of wild salmon that comes from Vital Choice, it has no BPA in it and whatever, and threw it on a curry coconut wrap. Oh so... But just so simple, and the curry in it is so, so good for you. So yeah, Pure Wraps makes these amazing curry coconut wraps.
Dr Daniel Amen: Stay tuned. BrainMD is going to come out with a greens product that is spectacular that we have been working on sourcing it. It is organic. It's loaded with immune boosting nutrients, coming soon.
Dr Daniel Amen: We talked about lowering stress, foods that boost your immune system, and nutraceuticals that boost immunity to stave off infection. So we've already referred to some of them, omega three fatty acids, vitamin D. Only about 25% of the population has healthy vitamin D levels. We want you to get yours checked and optimize. Work with an integrative practitioner to determine other supplements. But those that enhance immunity, you mentioned aged garlic, therapeutic mushrooms, Anthocyanins, these are extracts from fruits.
Tana Amen: Those are good for your eyes. So one thing that I want to talk about though is that people often like they start to get sick and they start all of these supplements. That's not really the best way to do it. It's like you can't start to get sick and then start taking vitamin C. Vitamin C doesn't really help get rid of a cold. It helps prevent a cold, helps boost your immune system. What we're talking about is helping you stay healthy.
Tana Amen: There's a great analogy about rats in the street. It's like if you put trash in the street, the rats come out. Well, it's like were the rats always there or did the trash bring them out? Does that make sense? So you want to make sure you're always boosting your immune system so the rats don't come out. Because the rats are always going to be around you, but you don't want to attract them. By keeping your immune system boosted all the time, you prevent that ability for them to actually be able to live and survive.
Tana Amen: That's what we were trying to do. One thing that I want to talk about is-
Dr Daniel Amen: You want to do this before you're sick rather than-
Tana Amen: Before, yes. You don't wait until you get sick. One of the things that we're not touching on-
Dr Daniel Amen: You're so excited about this.
Tana Amen: Yes, because I've been sick. One thing was that you need to be thinking about is not just the things that go after immunity in the moment. You want to be thinking inflammation. You got to be decreasing inflammation all the time. Because anytime your system, you've got inflammation going on, you are more likely to get sick. So you've got to be thinking things like what we talk about all the time, healing your gut all the time, fish oil all the time, probiotics.
Dr Daniel Amen: Well, we haven't talked about gut, but gut is important-
Tana Amen: In keeping you well.
Dr Daniel Amen: 60% of your immune tissue is in your gut. So probiotics can be really helpful, but it's keeping your gut [inaudible 00:10:50] happy.
Tana Amen: All the time. Yes, and so fish oil so that you keep that inflammation down. You want to be working on not just the immune enhancing supplements, but the inflammation, like decreasing supplements.
Dr Daniel Amen: Well, basically all of the [crosstalk 00:11:08] risk factors-
Tana Amen: And your gut. Yes, thank you.
Dr Daniel Amen: ... are good to strengthen your brain-
Tana Amen: All the time.
Dr Daniel Amen: ...and keep you healthy. So be smart. Don't travel when you don't have to.
Tana Amen: Sleep.
Dr Daniel Amen: If you're sick, work from home if you can. Protect yourself, get rid of the automatic negative thoughts. Watch the news once for like half an hour and that's it, turn it off. Otherwise, it's going to damage your immune system. Comedies, we just saw Meet the Parents again. It's hysterical. We hope this is helpful to you. Stay with us. We're going to talk about Brain in the News next.
Tana Amen: Make sure you leave us your comments. You can go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, leave us questions, comments, and we would love to get back to you. You can also tag us on social media, and I know I love to go on my social media and see what people are saying, so.
Dr Daniel Amen: And when you leave a review, we'll enter you into a raffle to win Tana's cookbook, Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook, or The End Of Mental Illness. You let us know which one you do.
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Dr Daniel Amen: If you're considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain healthy supplements from BrainMD, you can use the code, podcast 10, to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at BrainMDhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.