Q&A: How To Put Your Brain In A Healing Environment

Dr. Daniel Amen: Welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way Podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen.
Tana Amen: 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. Welcome back. In this episode, we are going to answer questions. Be sure to leave us more questions. We love to answer your questions. You can leave us a review on iTunes if you would so kindly do that. You can also go to our website and leave a question there. What you want to do is go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. Go to the reviews page and there are some instructions there. You can leave us a question. You can leave us a review. Anything that's on your mind.
We actually just want to hear from you, but we really do like answering your questions. If you will go there, that would be great. We are giving away my cookbook, The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook, and I will sign it for you. These are our recent winners. Our current winners are Matthew from Salt Lake, Utah, Holly from Newnan, Georgia, Catherine from Roland, North Dakota, and Kathleen from Boise, Idaho.
Dr. Daniel Amen: We have a lot of listeners from North Dakota.
Tana Amen: I know. Isn't that weird? What's going on in North Dakota? Kathleen from Boise, Idaho.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Nothing, which is why they're listening to us.
Tana Amen: Thanks to all of you for leaving questions. That was not nice. That was not nice.
Dr. Daniel Amen: I've been to North Dakota.
Tana Amen: That was so not nice.
Dr. Daniel Amen: We are so grateful, and we are getting reviews. I want to read some of them. Just wanted to say thank you. This is from Sabrina from Ontario, Canada. Just wanted to say thank you for sharing your knowledge on brain health. I'm 27 and going through a PhD program, as well as fighting with my husband a lot. Since I've discovered your videos, podcast, and book, Feel Better Fast and Make It Last, I've been using your techniques to improve my mind. Your recommendation to listen to mood enhancing songs like Clair de Lune Debussy has saved my husband and I from fighting in front of our baby. Thank you and God bless you and Tana.
Tana Amen: Awesome. That's so cool.
Dr. Daniel Amen: One more, from Kukrew. You two compliment each other so perfectly. I just found your podcast and have been furiously playing catch up. I can't get enough. Such important work you're doing and I'm so grateful for it as I'm sure anyone who follows you both would agree. Love to you both.
Tana Amen: That's so awesome. Thank you so much.
Dr. Daniel Amen: We are grateful. All right. We're answering questions.
Tana Amen: We do have fun. Okay, let's see. I like this question. My most pressing concern is putting my brain in the best nutritional and healing environment after a life of poor decisions, along with 22 automobile accidents and playing football. Yes. This is why I'm reading this, and playing football as a teenager. I've lost 75 pounds going from 275 to 200.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Congratulations.
Tana Amen: Yes, and eat as clean a diet as I can afford. Any suggestions? Yes, lots of them. We have lots of suggestions.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Keep doing what you're doing, one. The most important part of getting well is mindset. If you don't have your mindset right, it's never going to work.
Tana Amen: Right. We go with this acronym MASTERY, and the M in MASTERY is mindset, and then assessment. You should also possibly get assessed, assessor your number. Go to our website and take the brain health assessment.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Brain health assessment. Know your brain type, your brain's strengths, your brain's vulnerabilities. Also on Brain Fit Life, we have a section on know your important numbers. You can actually plug in your lab tests and it'll tell you if it's healthy, and if it's not healthy, what are some simple strategies to do for it.
Tana Amen: We go through each of those nutrients to tell you like what they help with. If they're low, you could be in trouble. Simple things like vitamin D and fish oil and stuff like that can be really helpful. S is sustenance, which it looks like you're doing a good job of losing weight. You're now going to be entered into the raffle to get The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook, which is full of simple recipes. Hopefully that will help you.
Dr. Daniel Amen: He said, "I'm eating as healthy as I can afford."
Tana Amen: Right.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Do you have any tips on less expensive ways-
Tana Amen: I do.
Dr. Daniel Amen: ...to eat?
Tana Amen: That's one thing I love about The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook. I put a ton of energy into that to help people with money and time. There's a ton of tips right in that book on how to save money, how to do things. Even the soups, like how do you make use of what's leftover in your refrigerator before they go bad. The dirty dozen and the clean 15. It's got the websites.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Just so people know about that, the dirty dozen are... It comes from the environmental working group, ewg.org. It's those foods that just quite frankly you should not eat if they're not organic. The clean 15 is these are foods that buying organic is not as important.
Tana Amen: Things like maybe an orange or a banana that has a thick peel on it might not be quite as critical. Berries are very critical. If you go to ewg.org, that will give you the dirty dozen and the clean 15. They update it. They tell you which are the most pesticide laden. Seafoodwatch.org is another one that tells you the best seafood.
Dr. Daniel Amen: They have their own app.
Tana Amen: Right. There's lots of tips in the cookbook. You're going to be entered into that drawing, and you can also go to my website and a lot of that information is on my websites, in my blogs. Those are all on my website, tanaamen.com. Congratulations. You're doing great.
Dr. Daniel Amen: There's so many great resources at tanaamen.com.
Tana Amen: They're free.
Dr. Daniel Amen: From videos to-
Tana Amen: Meal planning.
Dr. Daniel Amen: ...your recipes to meal planning.
Tana Amen: Right.
Dr. Daniel Amen: That's really good.
Tana Amen: Actually one of the tips... Let me just point this out because for someone on a budget, it is really helpful. There's recipes on there and along with the recipes are the meal planner, which actually tells you exactly how much of each ingredient you need so you don't over purchase. That's really helpful.
Dr. Daniel Amen: I really like this question and this comes from Mark. Actually he has two questions. I'm curious about your brain health recommendations specifically for salespeople and entrepreneurs. People in these roles, in many cases, are operating out of high stress on a daily basis due to their responsibility. I'm the CEO. Salespeople are constantly facing rejection and battling mental wars, and this would seem to be very tough on the brain with cortisol levels being so high. Yes, I have lots. One, you want to know your brain type. Salespeople are often brain type two. They're outgoing. They're spontaneous. They're gregarious. They might struggle with paperwork. Optimizing the front part of their brain can be really helpful.
If they have ADD, very common in salespeople, get it treated can be really important.
Tana Amen: Things like meditation. Exercise for sure because that will help to relieve stress, but meditation can be... Just a five minute meditation can be so helpful.
Dr. Daniel Amen: We actually have a supplement that I developed specifically for people who have chronic stress called Everyday Stress Relief that has Relora, which helps to block cortisol, and holy basil, which has been shown to really calming. The right supplements, know your brain type, do, as you said, the brain healthy strategies, and you're going to have to stop taking people out for alcohol. I know it's like if I get two or three drinks in them, they're more likely to sign the order for me.
Tana Amen: But that actually interrupts sleep and sleep is critical if you're trying to decrease cortisol. Too much alcohol interrupts sleep.
Dr. Daniel Amen: One more question. Do you want to read this one?
Tana Amen: Sure. I like this one. What would you suggest to help with the social media blues per se when viewing family posts that can be hurtful, not mean, just not posting times with you, although posting them with other family members. I do not get on much for the browsing or every time there is a notification. I started using social media for the groups and interests I have, although there are times when the feed will pull those posts that can be hard to dismiss quickly and emotionally. Is there a natural way to prepare my brain and emotions prior to even getting on social media to check for those interests I have? I know this may be a silly question, although I thought I would ask as I seem to have come across these occurrences more frequently in the past months.
It's not silly at all, Debra. I actually think it's a great question because depression has gone up so much, depression and anxiety, especially with younger people because they're constantly comparing their lives to what's going on on social media. What you're describing here in a sense is the same thing. She's describing not being included.
Dr. Daniel Amen: I just had an epiphany that the holidays are hard and often it's because you have to spend time with people that stress you out.
Tana Amen: You talk about this a lot.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Right? I mean, the holidays are hard and they're coming up. It's hard to believe because it just seemed like they were here. But imagine if that's true. I'm one of seven. Tana will tell you, I come from a reasonably normal family.
Tana Amen: No, they're a wonderful family. You come from a wond... Let's just compare them to mine.
Dr. Daniel Amen: But I'm still hearing stories that happened 60 years ago, right? They tell the same stories over. I'm like, can't you come up with a different story? I had a raccoon when I was a teenager and the raccoon, you know...
Tana Amen: Was terrible. He was a terror.
Dr. Daniel Amen: She was awesome, and I loved her.
Tana Amen: You thought it was a he and he was a terrorist.
Dr. Daniel Amen: She would poop sometimes in your shoes. Yes, she ate-
Tana Amen: She ate your sister's bitch.
Dr. Daniel Amen: ...my sister's gold fish.
Tana Amen: She tore up your mother's bathroom. Yeah.
Dr. Daniel Amen: But she was awesome. It's like 55 years later, I'm still hearing the same stupid story. Here's the epiphany, that with social media now it's like you have the holidays everyday.
Tana Amen: 24/7.
Dr. Daniel Amen: 24/7. If you felt excluded as a child... I mean, I talk about this. I was the second son in a Lebanese family out of seven children, which meant I was pretty much invisible. When you're second, it sucks when your second, right? I mean, I'm so grateful I was second because I didn't have to go in the grocery business, right, and my brother does that and he loves it. It's all good, but it's like those negative feelings you have in your family that you can never get away from. Where without social media, before social media, you only had to like steal yourself or gird yourself a couple of times a year.
Tana Amen: I actually very much can relate to this. I really appreciate what you're saying. Here's one thing I do. I actually don't go on there for personal reasons at all. I go on to post for business. I go on to answer questions for business. I absolutely do not go on like personal social media except once in awhile when someone tells me they posted something they want me to see. I'll go look at that one thing. I don't go on there. It's just too much of an energy drain. I just don't do it and that's very help.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Because it's often not for your small group.
Tana Amen: No. It's just a ton of other's stuff.
Dr. Daniel Amen: For your small group and all of their groups, which then might be...
Tana Amen: Here's the thing.
Dr. Daniel Amen: The less time the better.
Tana Amen: Here's the thing, you're sitting at home, which gives your brain too much time to read stuff into a post that they didn't mean. They're just posting quickly. They're posting stuff. They might not have even meant to hurt your feelings. It might've just been something that was on their mind. But because you're at home, it's only natural. You're going to look at that and read it and go, "Why wasn't I part of that," and then your brain begins to spin on that. That's why depression and anxiety has gone up. My suggestion is the less the better.
Dr. Daniel Amen: There you have it, and I'm not going to say from the horse's mouth because that will get me into trouble. Thank you. Go on brainwarriorswaypodcast.com and ask us more questions. We love it. Everybody who ask us a question is going to get a free book signed by Tana. We'd also love you to go to Apple Podcast and leave a review or leave a review on brainwarriorswaypodcast.com.
Tana Amen: If you're enjoying The Brain Warrior's Way Podcast, please don't forget to subscribe, so you'll always know when there's a new episode. While you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five star rating as that helps others find the podcast.
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 "podcast10" 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.