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Change Your Brain Every Day
How to Manage Your Mind When The World is Falling Apart
00:27:22
When chaos hits the world, how do you protect your inner peace? In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen share real-life tools to manage your mind during turbulent times. From global conflict to personal crises, they reveal how to avoid being...
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- [00:00]
A
People who start the day with the news are 27% less happy when the world seems like it's in turmoil. How do you manage your mind? Today on Change youe Brain, Dr. Amen and Tana discuss three strategies on managing your mind when the world seems to be in chaos. So number one in dealing with your mind is, what do you want? On one piece of paper, write down, what do you want? Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual help. And then you go, does it fit? The second thing, notice what you like way more than what you don't. We published the study on negativity bias. Being negative, bad for your brain. So that's why you have to turn off the news and then not believing every stupid thing you think.
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B
When you're listening to this, write down a strategy because it's easy to go, oh, don't let this, the stress be your excuse. But you gotta have a plan.
- [01:00]
A
The ultimate question is, every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. Autism. What is it? How do you know if you have. Autism's not one thing, it's many different things. There's so much to know about autism. It's not hard to understand. Hi, this is Dr. Daniel. Amen. I'm so excited to tell you about our new course, Healing Autism A New Way Forward, that I did with my friend and really autism expert, Dr. Jerry Cartzinel. It's a completely new look at autism. This course is for parents of children or adults who have autism, but it's also for professionals. We hope you'll join us us with Healing Autism A New Way Forward. We are very excited to be with you today and we are going to talk about how to manage your mind when the world is falling apart. Tan and I were away on vacation in Europe. I gave a lecture in London, which was incredibly fun, and went to Italy for a few days and then Switzerland, which we dearly loved. And during that time, Israel bombed Iran and then the United States.
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B
Well, let's be a little more clear. I'm sound asleep. It's six o' clock in the morning and you tell me we dropped bombs on Iran and no context. And I just jumped out of bed because my brain immediately went to 9 11. Those of us who live through 9 11, it's like, that was such a scary time and I'm like, we need to get home. I was out of the country when 911 happened and I got stuck out of the country without medication. That I needed. And so, I mean, it's really easy to start to spin on what's happening, what's going on, and like, you know, how is this going to affect all of us? It was. I kind of freaked out and you were like, I don't think you were like, thinking about that at 6 o' clock in the morning and how that was going to go over.
- [03:38]
A
So this is very important. When the world seems like it's in turmoil, how do you manage your mind? And so often news companies want to keep you glued to the terror of what's going on. And if you don't discipline your mind, you have the news on all the time. And people who start the day with the news are 27% less happy in the afternoon. So, yes, there's been quite a bit in the news. But I grew up in the 60s where there were riots and assassinations and the Vietnam War, and I had friends who had brothers come home in body bags. And I'm like, Nothing like the 60s, but we still have to learn to manage our minds. And I've been so proud of you that ever since we did the show on positivity bias, that you have been way more positive.
- [04:53]
B
Well, I also watch the news less and, and I. And because it does affect me, I'm one of those people who start screaming at the TV within, you know, 15 seconds, I'm screaming at something. So I know that about myself. So I like, can't watch them.
- [05:06]
A
Can you imagine what that does to my nervous system? There you scream.
- [05:10]
B
But you know, one of the things that, that it helped me, unfortunately I had to go through something very hard for it to help me. When my mom got sick. When my mom got sick. And, you know, we spend so much of our time. Something occurred to me as people, we spend so much of our time thinking about all the things. I certainly do. I mean, I'm a prepper, right? So I think about all the things that could go wrong or might go wrong and being prepared and like paying attention to the news and paying attention to all the, the things in the world that are happening. And then all of a sudden, when something that is like one of the worst things that could happen happens, it's like, wait a minute, I didn't see that one coming because I was thinking of like, world crisis, when in fact, you know, someone you love dying in your house is, is that. Is. It just took everything I had to deal with that one thing. And I'm like, why do I need to be constantly looking for more trouble? When I have enough trouble that's real that I have to focus on. And somehow it shifted that for me.
- [06:11]
A
Well, and your mother was a world class prepper. She was ready.
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B
She got that from me actually.
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A
Of the world. And you know, when we cleaned up her house and all that, I mean the stuff she was preparing.
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B
Yeah, she took it to an extreme.
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A
And I just, I kept thinking during that process is she wasn't prepared for the right things, that cancer. If you're a prepper, you should be prepping for cancer. You should be prepping for heart disease, you should be prepping for dementia. That those literally are the things that are likely to get you. And you know, maybe it's the Chinese, probably not. Maybe it's the Russians. I don't think so. I think it's, you know, I would. In fact I was adding this up that we have a trillion dollar defense budget in the United States, but we're not, we don't have a defense budget really against addiction.
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B
Well, we don't have anything for prevention for sure.
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A
And last year anheuser Busch spent $7.2 billion on sales and marketing and Coca Cola spent 3 billion and Pepsi spent 3 billion and Facebook spent 11 billion. And their hijacking our brains and our bodies. What we should be prepping for is our minds deteriorating our brains deteriorating our bodies.
- [08:04]
B
Well, to your point, when my mom got sick, it actually did help me. There was something weird that happened and I was like, why am I so focused on what could happen? And it helped me to let go a little bit and not be so hyper focused on when. When you call me a prepper, you like to say that I'm prepping for the end of the world in the zombie apocalypse. I'm not. I'm a city volunteer, as one of the city volunteers and I'm a trauma nurse. And so I'm always like prepping for like, I'm prepared for like earthquakes, floods, fires, those types of things or as much as you can. Some of those things you, as we just saw with Texas, you cannot always prepare for. But what happened when that happened with my mom was I thought, you know, I'm just, it made me less uptight. I started to just settle down a little bit and like, I don't know, this is a really morbid thought, so maybe you guys will want to cut this out. But I just realized we're all going to die and all of a sud.
- [09:04]
A
It's not a morbid thought, but I.
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B
Was just like, all of a sudden I'm like We're going to die. Like, why am I spending so much of my energy on this when I should be relaxing a little bit and getting my cortisol down?
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A
Relaxing a little bit to get your cortisol down. And when you meditate, I'm not.
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B
Yeah. Because I'm not normally a relaxed person by nature.
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A
And when you meditate on a regular basis, you're so much happier.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Which means, of course, I'm happier.
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B
Right.
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A
And so I want to give you that time. All right. Strategies for dealing with the insanity of the world coming at us very quickly. And I like what you said. And ultimately, when I was in college, I took a death and dying class. I think it's the most.
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B
Me too.
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A
Classic.
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B
I just take one to. Yeah.
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A
College. Because I've known I was going to die. And so compared to death, how important is this?
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B
Right.
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A
And there's not that much that's that important compared to death.
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B
It's true. When you see so much death, I saw so much of it where I worked. It can make you. It can do two things. It can make you a little bit hard and cynical because you have to be a little bit. To deal with it. But then at the same time, it can make you a little bit paranoid. Like, I like parenting and things like that. You're always afraid of that thing that can happen. So you have to figure out how to deal with that. You have to have a strategy.
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A
So number one in dealing with your mind is, what do you want? I always default with my patience to the one page miracle on one piece of paper. Write down, what do you want? Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health. And then you go, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life? So always default to that. And this weekend, something really insane happened. My mother.
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B
Oh, I love this.
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A
Got two tattoos.
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B
She's my hero.
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A
I always say the reason I'm bringing this up is I don't have any tattoos.
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B
She's 93.
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A
But if I got one, it would just say, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life? And it helps me with you so much because my goal with you is kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. Always want that. Don't always feel like that. Rude thoughts show up in my head. But because I know what I want, I act in ways to get it, so I don't say every stupid thing. I think I make your decaf cappuccino. You do every morning.
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B
Have you so well trained.
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A
I love that. I'm like, does it fit? I want this kind, caring, loving, supportive relationship.
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B
Yeah, I think we both try to fit.
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A
And then it was Saturday afternoon. I got this text on my phone of a foot with a rose tattoo.
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B
It was so great. It was okay. You just like glossed over that a minute ago. His 93 year old mother. My mother in love. I call her my mother in love cuz she's amazing. So I get this, we get this picture and I'm like, that can't be real. There's no way your mom went and got a tattoo. Your siblings were pulling your leg. Nope. Turns out she didn't get one, she got two. She got one on each foot. And I, there was something about it. I was like, doesn't I know people are going to like have all kinds of opinions on whether she should get a tattoo or not. She's 93, okay, so she's amazing. Let her have a tattoo. I just thought it was so amazing because it was like she just went and did something that she would never normally do and it was awesome. And I thought it was so great. It was so fun. Like the kids think she's the coolest.
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A
Grandma ever on the planet with her purple hair.
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B
Her purple hair, black nails and her tattoos. She dresses to the nines like she's so cute. This was your mom?
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A
That's why I'm so normal. Not, not.
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B
No, that's just cool. Like she's just cool. She's adorable.
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A
If you would have told me that when I was growing up with this.
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B
That she was going to have purple hair, black nails and two tattoos.
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A
Not my mother. No way. Struggling with your mental health? At Amen Clinics, we use brain imaging and personalized care to help you heal at 11 locations. Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, New York, Orange County, California, Seattle and Scottsdale. Visit amen clinics.com. so the second thing, know what you want and then notice what you like way more than what you don't. So we published the study on negativity bias being negative, bad for your brain. So that's why you have to turn off the news. If you're just continually glued to the news waiting for who's going to bomb the next person. That's just your mainlining cortisol, the stress hormones which shrinks.
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B
I'm very vulnerable to that. That's. I'm, I'm so vulnerable to that. I know I can't do that. I get the headlines and then I just sort of leave it alone. Like I want to know what's happening and then I leave it alone.
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A
So I think that's critical. And then not believing every stupid thing you think that questioning your thoughts, oh, it's the end of the world. Oh, It's World War 3, right? There was a lot of that going out and it's like, probably not. And if it is, we're all gonna die between now and then. That was not helpful.
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B
That just was not helpful to everybody listening.
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A
It's like, we're all gonna die. What is your life going to be like between now and then? I have a friend who is on Hawaii. You remember a couple of years ago there was a text that went out that said there was a nuclear warhead coming. You have 10 minutes to live. And with 38 minutes later they went, oh, sorry, that was an accident.
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B
Crazy.
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A
Yeah. But whatever it is, I like love our friend Byron. Katie, she always says, in this moment, right now, do you have everything?
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B
Yeah, not 10 seconds ago, not 10 seconds from now, in this moment, do.
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A
You have everything you need? So anchoring your cell to.
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B
Well, that's what prayer and meditation does for me. It just, that's my whole. That's what it does. It brings me to the present and anchors, it grounds.
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A
Well, you know what? I'm working on a new program to be launched hopefully early next year in churches and businesses and schools. And I was reviewing the literature on prayer and what it does and we actually published a study on decreases activity in an area of the brain called the posterior cingulate gyrus. So that's toward the back of the brain. It's an area involved in the default mode network. And the default mode network is sort of like the chatter in your head that talks about you. It's the self referential part of you that is like the voice.
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B
So you become more aware of things besides yourself, like others and your surroundings.
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A
And well, when the chatter goes down, you stop thinking so much about yourself. And that's usually a good thing, right? And I have found when people get depressed, but then they focus on being helpful to other people, their depression becomes much less.
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B
That's why they say that people who volunteer do so much better.
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A
So turn off the news. Know what you want. Ask yourself if your behavior is getting you what you want. Kill the ants. The automatic negative thoughts.
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B
Pray, meditate, have a daily routine.
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A
And don't let the stress be your excuse to hurt yourself. Oh well, I have to drink because I'm so upset about what's going on. Or no, I have to smoke pot because both drinking and smoking pot is going to lead to withdrawal where it's going to make you more anxious than before. And I don't think we've talked about Japanese walking.
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B
Oh, dear Lord.
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A
Podcast.
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B
We drove our kids crazy Japanese walking.
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A
We were in Europe and I just saw this article on Japanese walking and how it's more effective than getting 10,000 steps a day. And since that I read that we have done it every day. So we're. It's not that hard going on a month of like every day Japanese walking. I think it's modern Japanese walking. So just walk normally for three minutes. Can you do that? And then walk as fast as you can and then do that for three minutes.
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B
So it's basically like interval walking for three minutes at a time. Fast and the normal. And then fast and the normal five times, right? Five cycles, 30 minutes. So it's five cycles. Yeah, yeah.
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A
So normal, fast, that's six minutes. Repeat that five times, that's 30 minutes. They found it's better, like significantly better than walking straight for 10,000 steps because it's. The intervals take you an hour and a half. This takes 30 minutes. Your legs are stronger, your heart is younger, it decreases blood pressure improves something called heart rate variability. Love this so much because I'm always.
- [19:47]
B
Does another really important thing for those of us that have ADD and cobwebs in the morning. It's, it's why I've, I always told you that like working out first thing in the morning is so important for me. But the Japanese, what. When you interval walking like that, it actually helps the same way that intense exercise helps me. It just clears those cobwebs. It just gets you like your brain working.
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A
And so I think the most important thing we're telling you during a stressful time, don't let the stress be your excuse to hurt yourself.
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B
And it's easy to say that, but I think the way that you do that is you like with listening to this, actually stop when you're listening to this, write down a strategy because it's easy to go, oh, don't let this, the stress be your excuse. But you gotta have a plan. And so if you just listen to what we're like, what you're talking about right now and some of the tips we're giving people, write them down and take, you know, the first. Just do one or two at a time and just go, okay, I can do that, I can do that for a week. And then after you've sort of mastered that for a week, add another one and then do another week and then add another one. I Mean, think about it. If you do one thing a week and you master that for a week, by the end of the year, you've done 52 new things that are. That you've mastered, that are going to completely change the trajectory of your life. So, but you got to write it down. You got to actually have that plan and not just hear someone saying, you know, don't do this, don't do that.
- [21:09]
A
Well, and the ultimate question is this good for my brain or bad for it? Right, that's the ultimate question. So if you just start with that and if you can answer that, if you listen to this podcast on a regular basis, you'll be able to answer that. And the takeaway from today is turn off the news. Or at least, like you said, limit it to five or 10 minutes. Just get the headlines and know that their goal is mind share. Their goal is to keep you there. And they don't keep you there with puppy stories. They keep you there with horror stories. And often says, if it bleeds, it leads. And you don't want to let big corporations manipulate your mind for profit, because the more eyeballs, the more they get paid by advertisers. I think that is a critical.
- [22:15]
B
I know there's one other really good strategy that helps because there are certain things that happen where, you know, I just. I like this strategy. We've talked about it before, but I want to bring it into this idea of, you know, stress taking over your life. I love the strategy that you taught me a few years ago about plan ahead for problems and have, like, not until the 12th thing that goes wrong. So whether it's vacation or whether it is a big event or whatever, whatever it is that really helps to not allow your brain to just, like, be hijacked by the stress when something goes wrong.
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A
You can't believe the number of my patients who love the rule of 12.
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B
Oh, it works so well. I mean, we've had to change it to, like, 120 at times, but it works so well.
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A
When do we move?
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B
Yeah, and this last vacation, we had to, like, bump it up just a little. But it, you know, it's okay because as long as you know you. Because what happens is your brain. For me, my brain becomes occupied with counting. Instead of, like, being really angry about the thing that just happened, I'll be annoyed by the thing that happened. But it's like, I've already told myself I'm not going to be angry until the 12th thing goes wrong. So I'm, like, occupied with, like, counting instead of Just spinning on what happened.
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A
So we just got back from vacation.
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B
And four things before I've. I had to fly to meet you. Four things on the flight there. So I was like. So I got off the plane and you're like, how did it go? I'm like, we're on four.
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A
So let me just say, for those of you that don't know about the rule of 12, when Tana turned 50, that was like seven years ago.
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B
You just gave my age away.
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A
We're going to Paris. I was taking you to Paris for your birthday and I just noticed that sometimes on vacation that something would go wrong.
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B
Well, especially international.
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A
And it would just sort of mess up the trip for a day or two. And I'm like, 12 things are going to go wrong. And it's based on the idea that the more flexible you are, the more psychologically healthy you are. In fact, on our intake here at Amen clinics, when we see new patients, we have them take a test and one of the measures is how flexible you are. And I'm like, 12 things are going to go wrong. Let's just promise ourselves we're not going to be upset until the 12th thing goes wrong.
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B
No, the 13th, you have to let the 12 things go wrong.
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A
13 thing goes wrong. And like three or four things went wrong on that trip and no one was.
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B
We were laughing, we're like, okay, that's three. And then we're like. So we were sort of making jokes about it, but we never really. It's just. It changes the.
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A
It changes your thought process, training, flexibility. Yeah, and that's a good thing because all of you out there are really good at solving problems. And so you want to get into the good problem solver part of your brain rather than the offended part of your right. And we can all get to the offended.
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B
So I'm gonna remind you about this when we start our construction.
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A
It's not. 12 is definitely not.
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B
I know, but I'm going to remind you about it because that's the thing that gets you all wound up.
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A
Yes. Tana's never met a space that she didn't want to improve.
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B
I think so. Women leave me comments. Do you not like to fix, like, change your spaces? Like, it's just a female thing.
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A
I'm not sure it's a woman thing. You're in war for the health of your brain. Everywhere you go, someone's trying to shove bad food down your throat that will kill you early or give you an addictive gadget, put terrible news in your head, making you anxious? Hi, I'm Dr. Daniel Amen, founder of Amen Clinics and Amen University. My wife, Tana and I created the Brain warriors way course. It's 26 hours of content where we walk you through, specifically in detail, how to have a better brain and a better life. From the food you eat, to the thoughts you think, to the strategies that you can engage in every day. If you want to survive and thrive, you have to become a Brain Warrior. We hope this has been helpful to you. How to manage your mind during times of insanity and crisis. Never forget the rule of 12. Leave us a comment, question or review subscribe to the podcast we are very grateful you are part of our community.