Breaking Through Emotional & Physical Pain & EMDR Therapy

Summary

Podcast Summary: Change Your Brain Every Day

Episode: Breaking Through Emotional & Physical Pain & EMDR Therapy

Hosts: Dr. Daniel Amen & Tana Amen
Date: December 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the interplay between emotional and physical pain, the impact of environmental and dietary factors (with a focus on aspartame and opiates), and introduces practical strategies for breaking out of the chronic pain cycle. Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss the science and personal experience behind pain management, including journaling, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, positive psychology, and brain health habits. They emphasize hope, holistic practices, and actionable steps for listeners to take control over their chronic pain—physically and emotionally.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Link Between Brain Chemistry, Opiates, and Pain

• Opiates' Double-Edged Sword: Dr. Amen opens with a stark warning: "The dirty secret about opiates... is it shuts off your brain's natural opiate production and it angers your white blood cells." (00:00)
• Opiates create short-term relief but can agitate the immune system and actually foster more pain over time (13:14). Thus, dependence grows not just from craving, but increased sensation of pain:
  Tana: "So what you're saying is if you take painkillers, you end up needing painkillers because you feel more pain."
  Dr. Amen: "Right. And that's why they're addictive and short term benefit." (13:14–13:21)

2. Aspartame and Hidden Dangers in Our Diet

• Aspartame's Widespread Use & Risk: Dr. Amen raises concerns about aspartame, noting it's now in 5,000 products since its introduction in 1980 (00:34, 10:31). Personal experiences reveal aspartame exacerbating arthritis and fibromyalgia-like pain, which resolved upon its removal.
• Generational Effects: Citing new mouse studies, Dr. Amen explains, "The mice's babies were anxious even though they never had aspartame... It created epigenetic changes... Isn't that interesting?" (10:31)
• Sugar-free ≠ Healthy: Tana describes her painful reaction to eating sugar-free jello containing aspartame, reinforcing the message that "sugar-free" often isn’t healthy (09:25).

3. Emotional Pain: Rage, Grief, and the Tools to Heal

• The Role of Repressed Rage: Tana discusses the importance of "rage journaling" for emotional catharsis. She clarifies that it is not wallowing in negativity but a way to express suppressed feelings safely and then shift to gratitude and prayer (04:32–05:51).

  "When you learn how to rage journal and get out the things that you can't say out loud... you get them out... Then I focus on my prayer, my meditation, my gratitude." —Tana (04:32–05:51)

• Negativity and the Brain: Suppressed emotions ignite the brain's emotional centers, keeping individuals in a cycle of negativity and pain (05:30–05:51).

4. Healing Loops vs. Doom Loops: The Relief Model

Dr. Amen introduces the "relief" or healing loop as a framework for escaping chronic pain:

• R: Recognize the triggers. Cultivate an attitude of "curious, not furious"—study your pain without judgment (13:54).
• E: Ease the suffering pathway. Understand the three pain pathways—feeling, suffering, and calming. Use supplements (e.g., SAMe, Saffron, Curcumin) and non-pharmaceutical measures when possible (16:09–18:50).
• L: Let go of negativity. Use cognitive strategies like “killing the ANTs” (Automatic Negative Thoughts) and positive journaling (19:14).
• I: Initiate relaxation. Practices like hypnosis, progressive muscle relaxation, rage journaling, martial arts, and havening are suggested for releasing muscle tension and calming the emotional brain (21:09–22:38).
• E: Embrace brain healthy habits. Diet, exercise, sleep, prayer, and reducing inflammation are foundational (31:11).
• F: Foster hope. Agency—believing that "tomorrow can be better and I have a role in it"—is central (32:57).

Notable Quote on Hope:

"You are not stuck with the brain you have... that's, I think, what my work gives people, that tomorrow can be better, and you have a role in it." —Dr. Amen (32:57–33:20)

5. Supplements, Lifestyle, and Alternative Modalities

• Supplements: Tana’s "rock star combo" for pain and mood—Saffron, SAMe, and TMG—is discussed through both personal experience and anecdotal client success (17:44–18:43).
• Non-pharmacological practices: Tools like cold plunges and martial arts are praised for reducing inflammation and pain, and improving resilience (20:40–22:23).

6. EMDR & Psychotherapy for Emotional Trauma and Pain

• Explanation of EMDR: Dr. Amen describes EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) as a technique activating both hemispheres, helping process traumatic memories without being triggered (22:54, 28:21).

• Tana's Testimonial: She shares that EMDR allowed her to process her mother’s death and other emotional traumas without being overwhelmed:

  "When I did EMDR, it was very specific to trauma... Eventually what happens is it's not that you forget the thought, it's that there's no emotion attached to it... I had less pain, I slept better, I had more of these beautiful, loving thoughts of my mom.” —Tana (26:06–28:19)

• Therapeutic Journaling Exercise: Dr. Amen recommends the "Emotional Freedom Journal," using a balanced approach by dividing life into five-year periods, noting both “awesome” and “awful” events to locate sources of rage and pain (25:14–26:06).

7. Physical Health, Weight, and Inflammation

• Impact of Inflammation: Tana notes that reducing inflammation—mainly via diet and brain health—was the common thread in people overcoming not just pain but various health conditions, with weight loss being a positive side effect (33:56–34:41).
• Fat cells and pain: Fat cells secrete inflammatory cytokines, exacerbating pain:

  "If your body's inflamed, you hold on to weight. And being overweight all by itself increases pain." —Dr. Amen (34:41)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Aspartame’s Epigenetic Effects: 10:31
• Rage Journaling Explained: 04:32–05:51
• Opiates and Chronic Pain Cycle: 13:14–13:30
• The RELIEF Loop Overview: 13:54–14:39, 16:09–31:11
• Supplements for Pain/Depression: 17:00–18:50
• Cold Plunge & Non-Pharma Interventions: 20:40–21:09
• EMDR for Trauma/Chronic Pain: 22:54–29:47
• Journaling Exercise Instructions: 25:14–26:06
• Emotional & Physical Pain Transformation Stories: 32:57–34:41

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Memorable Quotes

• "Curious, not furious... I always want you learning and studying your pain." —Dr. Amen (13:54)
• "When you get the inflammation down, everything else falls into place. The number one thing was pain." —Tana (34:41)
• "You are not stuck with the brain you have... tomorrow can be better, and you have a role in it." —Dr. Amen (32:57)

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Tone and Style

The conversation is candid, practical, and hopeful. Dr. Amen maintains an educational yet approachable tone. Tana’s input brings personal, relatable anecdotes and direct application of the discussed models, blending scientific insight with warmth and empathy.

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Final Thoughts

The episode offers a holistic yet scientifically grounded roadmap for overcoming chronic pain by addressing dietary factors, emotional triggers, negative thought patterns, and nervous system imbalance. Listeners are encouraged to embrace hope and agency by adopting integrative practices—including journaling, targeted supplementation, and therapies like EMDR—while scrutinizing hidden toxins and stressors in their lives.

For listeners seeking further help, the hosts recommend Dr. Amen’s new book, emotional freedom journaling, and working with qualified therapists for specialized interventions like EMDR or ISTDP.

Transcript

[A]

The dirty secret about opiates that I talk about in the book is it shuts off your brain's natural opiate production and it angers your white blood cells. So they actually did a study where they're looking at the impact of oxycodone on white blood cells and it agitates them. So what it's doing is its short term benefit that then's actually creating more pain. In this episode, Dr. Aman and Tana discuss a helpful model to help you.

[B]

Control of your addictions and improve your brain health.

[A]

Aspartame was unleashed into the American market around 1980. It is now in 5,000 products. And people often think of sugar free jello as a health food. It's clearly not. It can create generational issues. Is it possible this mental health epidemic in kids and young people is an epigenetic result of things like aspartame that are creating problems not only in you, but in generations of you?

[C]

Hi, I'm Dr. Daniel Lehman. I've experienced firsthand the powerful impact that proper supplementation can have on your brain.

[A]

Your body and your mind.

[C]

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[A]

To boost mood and memory.

[C]

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[A]

Can change your brain for the better every day. Hey, hey. We're talking about pain.

[B]

We are.

[A]

You have soothed my pain.

[B]

I love that.

[A]

I mean being attached to someone you love.

[B]

I often say you are the yin to my yang. You ground me. You are very soothing.

[A]

Yeah. Do you often threaten my life?

[B]

I do. It's my way of telling you I love you though.

[A]

Yes. And I know there would be ways.

[B]

But you have to clarify that I threaten your life if you leave.

[A]

That there would be way too much pain if I left. Definitely not because of what you would do to me. But because of how attached I am to you. And grief is often attached to pain.

[B]

It's awful. It's awful.

[A]

And then with grief, often negativity begins to rear its head. Because when you lose someone you care about, your emotional brain heightens because it's looking for that person who lives in your head that it cannot.

[B]

It's really tough.

[A]

Anyways, welcome to change your brain every day. We are talking about my new book, change your brain, change your pain.

[B]

I think it might be one of my favorite books you've done.

[A]

And we talked about the doom loop. And in this one, I want to talk about the relief loop. It's like. Well, the. What's. What's the opposite of the doom loop? It's the healing loop. But we had a question.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is.

[B]

Yeah. So I was talking about rage journaling in the last episode and how helpful it's been for me. But then we also talked about how if you get stuck on negativity, it increases pain. So the question was, is rage journaling getting stuck on negativity? And the answer is not if you do it right. If you do it right. It's the opposite. Because when you have repressed rage, that is what's stirring up that negativity. Even if it's subconscious, it's always there. And it's just your. It's in the background brewing. It's just constantly there. And your brain sort of stays on fire. It's that those emotional centers stay fired up. But when you learn how to rage journal and get out, the things that you can't say out loud that you would never normally say to other people because you're too good of a person, you're too polite, or you're too whatever. And these are just things you just aren't supposed to say. But you get them out. What I do is I get them out, make sure I either burn it, shred it, do something with it. They're not the things you want people to know, and they're the things that you. It's like, I'm a good person. I don't say those things, but I'm going to say them. And then you get them out. And then what I do after that is then I focus on my prayer, my meditation, my gratitude. But it's like I get all of that negativity out, and then I sort of am open to receive all of the good, if that makes sense. It actually helps me not to be negative. So otherwise I just feel, like, irritated.

[A]

So I remember when we were listening to Sarno's book in the Car and Repressed Rage. And you often call me Pollyanna.

[B]

Oh. Oh, my gosh.

[A]

Pollyanna is.

[B]

If I have to watch that movie.

[A]

One more time, my favorite movie, Dear Lord. Like, I get a new grandchild, it's like, oh, great. A new reason to rewatch the Disney movie Pollyanna. And the reason I love Pollyanna because it's a positivity bias exercise. And she teaches people to play the glad game.

[B]

And I like the Punisher and Law Abiding Citizen.

[A]

And whatever situation you're in is there to be glad about in this situation. And I live my life pretty much in a really positive.

[B]

You really do. To the point that it feels like.

[A]

Sometimes a little dangerous, you know? So we didn't talk about my pain story in the last one.

[B]

We did not.

[A]

When I was young, when I was 35, I had chronic arthritis and my hands and my knees. I get on the floor to play with the kids and I couldn't get off the floor. And I was really upset about it. And then one day while I was seeing a patient, she said she stopped aspartame and her arthritis went away. And I think one of the reasons that I'm a good psychiatrist, because I learned from my patients, I'm a really good listener. And I'm like, I drink 32 ounces of diet soda every lunch, right? I thought, aspartame, it's free. Well, it's not free.

[B]

It's not free.

[A]

And so this was before I loved my brain and my body. I would go across the street of my office in Fairfield, California, to Jack in the Box, so you know how unhealthy I was and get a Diet Pepsi. And. And as I'm listening and hurting, I'm like, well, maybe I should cut out the aspartame. So I did, and the pain went away.

[C]

Wait.

[A]

And the pain went away. And then I'm like, oh, my God. And, you know, because I'm not that smart, I had to go, let's try it again. Maybe it's not the aspartame. Immediately it came back. And so I broke up with aspartame. But then as I got older, I don't have a right ACL because in an intramural football game, I tore it, and then at some point it snapped. And so I always sort of had knee pain.

[C]

And.

[A]

But then as I got older, no aspartame, my knees hurt. And then it's my back, and then it's my hip, and then it's my neck and it's my shoulder and it's my elbow and I'm like, oh my God, I'm breaking down or I'm getting older. And then I'm like, no, something I'm doing is wrong and I need to put my brain and my body in a healing environment. And since I started writing this book, I've had no pain for two years. And when I get pain now, I don't immediately go get an MRI because I know it's going to be abnormal. But as soon as I would get the mri, I would like go up to.

[B]

So I had to do this clear liquid diet for a medical procedure and I we got some Jello because I didn't know what else to have. And I was having Jello and so the jello, I couldn't find anything that didn't have aspartame and food dye. And I was like, I've got to figure out how to make some. But in the meantime, while I was waiting for the stuff to come in to make some, I was eating this Jello for this clear liquid diet and I got the sugar free. I'm like, okay, what's worse, the sugar or the aspartame? I'm like trying to weigh out the, you know, which one's the worst, you know. And so I'm telling you, it was the weirdest thing within. So I picked the sugar free. But within 24 hours I have this weird thing that happens sometimes where it almost feels like, I don't know if it's like a fibromyalgia reaction, but I get this pain, pain in my rib cage sort of around my spine where I've had injuries and it's like wicked pain in my rib cage and I'm like, is that from like the Jello? Like I'm not eating anything else, so I don't know what it could be stopped. It went and made the, the regular Jello and it went away and then I ran out of it. So I ate the other Jello and it came right back and it's the aspartame.

[A]

So brand new study on aspartame is going to blow your mind. They gave mice aspartame, it made them super anxious and then they gave them Valium and it calmed them down. But that is not a good long term treatment. So you can have Diet Coke. But the thing that blew my mind with the aspartame study is the mice's babies were anxious even though they never had aspartame. It created epigenetic changes so that Their offspring was anxious and their grandbabies were anxious. Aspartame was unleashed into the American market around 1980. It is now in 5,000 products. And people often think of sugar free jello as a health food. It's clearly not. But it can create generational issues. So is it possible this, this mental health epidemic and kids and young people is an epigenetic result of things like aspartame? There's probably a hundred of those things that are creating problems not only in you, but in generations of you. Isn't that interesting? So I promised that we would talk about the relief loop, the healing loop. So if chronic pain don't hate us. Actually lives. Yes. In your back, but also in your brain. If you really want to tackle it with more than opiates and Advil and Tylenol. And you know, we had this recent stuff about Tylenol might not be great for you or your offspring because it depletes glutathione, a major antioxidant, and can hurt your liver. And Advil, yes, very helpful because it decreases inflammation, but it also tears up.

[B]

Your gut and not everyone can take it.

[A]

And the secret about opiates, the, the dirty secret about opiates that I talk about in the book is it shuts off your brain's natural opiate production and it angers your white blood cells. So they actually did a study where they're looking at the impact of oxycodone on white blood cells and it agitates them. So what it's doing is it's short term benefit that then's actually creating more pain.

[B]

So wait, so what you're saying is if you take painkillers, you end up needing painkillers because you feel more pain.

[A]

Right. And that's why they're addictive and short term benefit.

[B]

So it's not just because you crave them, it's because you also feel more pain.

[A]

You feel more pain.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

And it's turning off your brain's natural pain killing ability. So less is better. I mean, some people, they just absolutely need them. I know when your mom lived with us and you know, well, she was dying, lung cancer, right.

[B]

I'm like, please give her more. Yeah, that's different.

[A]

So we're not saying never use them, but use them cautiously. So how do you get out of the doom loop? Well, it's called the relief healing loop. And the R is recognize the triggers. So every day my patients win no pain or they learn. They're always curious and not furious. So I had more pain. What am I angry about? What did I do different biologically? Did I not sleep? Did I have sugar free jello? What?

[B]

Or sugar?

[A]

I always want you learning and studying your pain. Was there a social hurt? Did you feel like somebody put you down? Or did you have a lack of meaning and purpose? Or did you do something against your own moral code which can then increase pain? So always think of biological, psychological, social, spiritual. So curious, not furious. So that's the R. Over 50 million.

[C]

Americans live with chronic pain and too many are told there's no hope beyond pills or surgery. My new book, change your brain, Change youe Pain gives you proven practical steps from the latest neuroscience to calm your brain, brain, heal your mind, and finally feel better physically and emotionally. Pre order now to receive bonus gifts at Change your brain ChangeYourPainbook.com.

[B]

Don'T you have like a great journal that people can use to specifically help them Journal in this way that we're going to talk about?

[A]

Curious, not furious, but help them.

[B]

Help them journal like what the biological, psychological, social, spiritual factors are?

[A]

Yes, we have that. When people pre ordered the book, an emotional freedom journal that I wrote for them. The E in relief is ease the suffering pathway. So remember the three pain pathways, the feeling pathway, the suffering pathway, and the calming pathway. So we have to calm that down and you can do it with medicine. Actually, one of the reasons I wrote the book is I got very curious about why does Cymbalta. Why is Cymbalta good antidepressant work for chronic pain? It's actually FDA approved for chronic pain. It's like, well, why? Why is that? Because they run on the same circuits in the brain.

[B]

That's wild.

[A]

Why does Sami, which I take methionine, right. And Betaine or TMG work on chronic pain and depression. That I thought was just.

[B]

So Those are my 2 favorite.

[A]

That's rock star combo or Amitriptyline, another antidepressant that neurologists have been using for 50 years for headaches because they run on the same circuits and so we ease the suffering pathway. And for me, I generally start with supplements before medication. So something like Sammy or Saffron.

[B]

So that's my combo.

[A]

Humans.

[B]

So my combo is Saffron, Sammy and tmg. Those are my three.

[A]

What? You had a friend who had chronic pain?

[B]

Oh yeah. So that's really funny. So. So someone very close to me actually was scheduled for surgery and was having all kinds of pain. I mean she's in her 70s and she was having all kinds of pain and she was terrified of having surgery. So she's like, I'm not saying I won't have it, but I'm really scared to have the surgery. I'm like, okay, well, why don't you just try doing something? You can always have the surgery, but just try doing this first. And I sent her some, I sent her curcumin, but then I sent her the saffron. Same thing. I take saffron, Sammy and tmg. And she calls me a week later and she said, her doctor said to her, what are you doing? I don't really understand. Why are you so much better? This doesn't make sense. She said she just feels so much better. It's crazy. So it's a lot of. It's inflammation. A lot of it is these, these pain pathways probably settled down her emotional brain. I don't know. You tell me.

[A]

But I'm just saying it was crazy pathway.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In her brain.

[B]

No, she's not having surgery right now.

[A]

And so if we think of the most powerful supplements, curcumin from turmeric, omega 3 fatty acids, saffron, Sammy and also vitamin D. In addition, things like Havening, when you get upset and you feel triggered. Havening, which we've talked about, developed by Ron Rudin, it's bilateral hemisphere stimulation, is when you feel triggered and upset. You just do bilateral stimulation, as simple as rubbing your hands together. Or my favorite is grabbing your shoulders and stroking down and go into the thing you're upset about rather than away from the thing you're upset about. Too many people go, oh, I want to know. Bad. Yeah, I'm going to drink. Or I feel I need to relax, so I'm going to drink. I need to relax or I can't think about that. So I'm going to smoke pot. Oh, no. And they eat a quart of ice cream. As opposed to. What I want you to do is do things to help you feel good now and later. And havening is one of those fascinating, interesting things. So recognize the triggers. Calm the suffering pathway. The L is let. Let go of the negativity. And there. I teach people to kill the ants, to engage in positivity bias training. It's. You want to calm the suffering pathway, you got to calm the negativity down. Because when the negativity drops frontal lobe function, then you can't turn the pain off.

[B]

Interesting. I know. One of my favorite things is cold plunge. You think I'm a little crazy, but.

[A]

Well, the cold plunge decreases inflammation.

[B]

I know, know. And I started doing it More for my mental. Like, I wanted to like challenge myself mentally. And I got out and I was like, wait, like, I actually have less pain. And that's how I sort of figured.

[A]

A lot of athletes use cold plunge to decrease inflammation after games.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

The eye is initiate relaxation. And this is so important. And I like hypnosis and progressive muscle relaxation as a way to just like start calming down the muscle tension you hold. And initiate relaxation is you got to get the rage out. So this is where rage journaling is. But when I read Sarno's book, I'm like, so how do you get rid of the rage? And then I remembered learning about istdp. Intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy was developed by Habib Davidloo from Canada. And it's basically a rage therapy. It's like, okay, feel your body and if the anxiety or the depression or the tension or the pain could come out, well, where would it go?

[B]

And do you think that's why karate was so helpful? Like, I actually think martial arts is really helpful.

[A]

And I. I've had many patients tell me that when they beat something up.

[B]

Oh my gosh, it feels so good. No, there's like no therapy. That's what it was. A big hurt for me when I stopped practicing because it feels good.

[A]

It was. And so Bataka bats and rage rooms. I really like istdp and I actually send a lot of patients and I.

[B]

So is that sort of the mental version of that? I haven't done it.

[A]

Yes. And I mixed it with emdr. So emdr, Eye movement desensitization reprocessing. It's a very powerful, powerful psychological treatment for trauma. So if your A score is more than 2, that some EMDR could be so helpful. But what I would do in many of my sessions, I know I would come out of a therapy session, I say, people died today and you'd like roll your eyes at me. But we would go through a trauma and I would go, so what are you thinking and feeling? And if the feelings could come out, whether it's your mom or your dad or the person who abused you, well, where would they go? And don't hold back. And obviously in real life you're going to be appropriate. But for now I don't want you to be appropriate. And I would do the eye movement therapy. And the relief people got by just being able to express the rage was monumental. And it was so special to know that people didn't have to hold the hyper vigilance absolutely. Hijack their nervous system. So for this Part we have our emotional freedom journal, which I'll talk about in a minute. But working with an EMDR therapist or someone who does intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy can be incredibly helpful. In the book, I talk about emotional freedom journaling and I use this exercise with all of my patients. So what is it? Well, it's how you find the rage. And for every five year period of your life, have one page and draw a line down the middle of the page and on the left side write what awesome things happened. And on the right side write what awful things happened. And that's why, because I always want my patients to remember things in a balanced way. If you just talk about the crap, you feel like crap. And so, you know, being 71, I have like 14 pages. But here are the really cool things as Forbes standing at the stove making fudge with my grandfather. It's awesome. Loved him. But on the other side of the page, I'm getting beaten up by my brother nearly every day. And so early on you can see the seeds of rage and where they happen. And if you do that for me, I find we're going to go find the top 10 Rage events and we're going to go after them. So when you did emdr, how is that helpful to you?

[B]

Oh, it was so helpful. I didn't really understand why it was helpful. It was, it seemed very odd to me. It's like, why are you making me move my eyes back and forth and why is this working? Like, I was like, it feels like a shortcut through therapy. Because I was very, I'm not that way now. But I was very like, anti not going to walk in, bang my head up against a wall for two years and talk about my problems. I was just not. Was not really a fan of the idea of it. So when I went in, I wasn't sure what to expect. And it was just, for me, it was sort of like, suck it up, live your life, like, take responsibility, whatever. It just didn't sound like something I wanted to do. But when I did emdr, it was very specific to trauma. And you bring up a thought, you do this eye movement thing while you're thinking about the thought, and it leads to. It's like a sweater unraveling. It leads to certain other thoughts. And I'm like, why? I don't really understand what's happening right now. But eventually what happens is it's not that you forget the thought, it's that there's no emotion attached to it. There's no trigger attached to it. It's a very interesting thing. One of the most powerful times that I ever used it. Well, there were many, but was when my mom died. And when that was. You know, grief is just such a tricky, sneaky, crazy thing, and it affects people in so many different ways. And the one time I think you don't want to have conflicting emotions and feelings is when someone you love dies. And when. And I was feeling more physical pain, and I was very frustrated, and I was very. Because I love this woman. But then I had these conflicting feelings, these odd thoughts coming up from when I was a kid. And I'm like, why? Why is this happening now? No, stop it. Like, I'm like, stop it, stop it, stop it. And it wouldn't stop. But when I did emdr, it resolved. And so I was able to then let that go. I had less pain, I slept better. I had more of these beautiful, loving thoughts of my mom. And those thoughts that I had when I was a childhood, I was able to see them very differently. My perspective changed. It's not that the thoughts went away. My perspective really changed, and it was just very powerful. So why it works, I can't tell you. You're the one who has to tell me why that works.

[A]

But it's because it calms your emotional brain.

[B]

Yeah. I don't know why it does that.

[A]

You activate both the left and the right hemisphere. So emdr eye movement, get your eyes to go back and forth while you bring up the memory that's triggering you. It's helping the right side, which is often the anxious side of your brain, integrate with the language side of your brain. And I published a study on this. I did a study on police officers who were involved in shooting. Calms their emotional brain. And so you still remember it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But you don't remember it with pain, right?

[B]

Yeah. Or in this case, was the first time ever that I remembered it, even with a new perspective of gratitude and love, which was really weird because that it was odd.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How many MDR sessions you think you've had?

[B]

Oh, dear Lord. I started with 10, and I thought that would be the end of it. And ended up going for two and a half years when I first started, and then I would go back and just do little cleanup sessions. I did it when I had empty nest syndrome. I did it when. You know what I mean? Like, I would go for certain things, like when my mom died when I just would feel myself feeling very anxious and triggered about something or, like, upset about something and going, why can't I get control of this. Why does this feel out of control to me?

[A]

So sort of, if you're like a professional basketball player.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You get coach into a little bit of a slump. You get a coach, right. And you videotape it and you go, what am I doing? How can I do this?

[B]

And honestly, it gets easier. It gets faster and f. Faster and easier and easier because you. You have a goal now going in. You sort of know how it works. You have a goal. So I didn't need to do 50 sessions. I only had to do, like, three.

[A]

You know, but if you have an a score of 8, you probably need to do 50.

[B]

Oh, initially I did.

[A]

To start. No, no, initially, because there's so much in your nervous system. I mean, one of the reasons I like EMDR is it's a fake effective, and it's fast. But if you grew up in crazy, then there's a lot of stuff in there to work out. And pretty soon it's like if you get triggered in a relationship and you have more pain.

[B]

But it made. I feel like it made me a better mom, a better wife, a better. You know what I mean? A better daughter. It just. It makes you better as a human because you can process things and begin to have more insight.

[A]

And we, like, hardly ever fight.

[B]

And if we do, if we fuss over something, it's like, over.

[A]

It's just because we've worked on our own triggers.

[B]

Right. And neither one of us want to hold on to it.

[A]

No. And it doesn't fit our goal. So initiate relaxation. And then it's embrace brain healthy habits. So if harmful habits is the H and pain hq, the E is embrace brain healthy habits. So it's the right food, it's exercise, it's going to bed, it's prayer and meditation and journaling, taking care of your brain. And then the F is foster hope. And what is hope? Hope is tomorrow can be better, and I have a role in it. So hope ultimately is about agency. And I think change your brain, change your pain is a book of hope because it's a roadmap out of pain, or at least to significantly decrease pain based on the things you can do to keep you out of pain over time. You are not stuck with the brain you have. And over the years, I've signed thousands of books, and I always sign them with hope because that's, I think, what my work gives people, that tomorrow can be better, and you have a role in it. I open each chapter with a story like Sam, the police officer from the first chapter. The second one is a story of Christy, that she was in chronic pain and had lupus and inflammatory bowel disease and was suicidal and had been let go from her job. And she was a mess. And she was eating at Taco Bell a lot. It's like. But doing all the things we're talking about in the relief lube, just within a few months was dramatically better.

[B]

It's amazing how many people will say within days to weeks they notice a difference.

[A]

You did a program on a 10 day brain boost. And when we did our Brain Warriors Way class, it's actually one of the reasons I wrote this book on pain. And you can actually take that at amen University. It's 26 sessions. Chronic pain was down 30.

[B]

Absolutely. And that was the thing, even way back when I was teaching classes, even from Omni diet. The number one thing, it wasn't about weight loss. People, you know, people always came to me for weight loss because that's what would happen. It was the side effect. But I always said, I don't do weight loss. Weight loss is not what I do. It's about health. It's about vibrant health. It's about decreasing inflammation. You get the inflammation down, you do all the right things, everything else falls into place. The number one thing was pain. It was pain. It was, you know, ibs, it was psoriasis, it was, I mean, all of the things that, that go along with inflammation and everyone, that was the thing they had. What happened next was the weight loss.

[A]

Well, if your body's inflamed, you hold on to weight. And being overweight all by itself increases pain. Right, because the fat cells produce something called inflammatory. They're not at all that make you hurt.

[B]

Yeah, they're little chemical plants.

[C]

I've seen it over and over again. When people change their brain, they change their life. As a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, I've studied more than 260,000 brain scans. And what I've learned is this. Most people are still struggling with a brain that's not working as well as it could and they don't even know it. That's why I created our app, brain fit life 5.0, to give you the same tools I use with my patients every day. Tools that can help you feel calmer, more focused and more in control of your habits. One person told us, this is the first time I felt like myself in years. You can try it for free and see what a better brain can do for you.

[A]

So we're going to talk more about change. Your brain, change your pain and some of the strategies in the book to help you coming up next. Leave us a comment, a question, a review. We're so excited to share this with you. Also, if you pre order the book right away because this will go away after the book is released that we're going to give you four free gifts including the emotional freedom journal that we talked about, a bottle of brain curcumin hypnosis audios, and the 30 day online course change your brain, change your pal.