Latest / I Choose Me with Jennie Garth / I Choose ... Learning to Rewire My Brain with Dr. Daniel Amen
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
- 0:09Speaker 1: back to I Choose Me, the podcast where incredible people
- 0:13Speaker 1: inspire me every day. I had the absolute pleasure of
- 0:18Speaker 1: inviting some of those people onto the stage for my
- 0:21Speaker 1: second annual I Choose Me Empowerment Summit, was presented by
- 0:25Speaker 1: iHeart and It Cosmetics, and now over the next few weeks,
- 0:28Speaker 1: I'm going to share the conversations with each of them
- 0:32Speaker 1: with you.
- 0:32Speaker 2: We have the pleasure of welcoming Jenny's personal psychiatrist. He
- 0:37Speaker 2: is also the physician and a twelve time New York
- 0:41Speaker 2: Times best selling author who has helped millions understand their
- 0:45Speaker 2: brain health. Please welcome to the stage Jenny and doctor
- 0:49Speaker 2: Daniel Amen, who.
- 0:52Speaker 3: Say, Okay, this is a treat to have this fan
- 1:03Speaker 3: right here in front of you and have this experience.
- 1:06Speaker 4: Okay, so I'm I'm I'm so excited about this. Please
- 1:10Speaker 4: have a seat. Yes, doctor Amen. Okay, So I.
- 1:14Speaker 1: First came across your work when I was really in
- 1:18Speaker 1: a funk. I was trying to understand my own brain.
- 1:22Speaker 1: I was trying to understand why I would get stuck
- 1:24Speaker 1: in patterns and I just I couldn't think my way out.
- 1:27Speaker 4: Of hard days.
- 1:29Speaker 5: Then I met you.
- 1:30Speaker 1: My beautiful friend Adele said, go see doctor Amen, and.
- 1:34Speaker 4: What I love about him, what I love about.
- 1:35Speaker 1: You is that not only do you give us science,
- 1:40Speaker 1: you give us hope.
- 1:42Speaker 4: You gave me hope.
- 1:45Speaker 1: Yes, he is the founder of Aiman Clinic's creator of
- 1:48Speaker 1: brain EMT, and he's scanned over almost three hundred thousand brains,
- 1:53Speaker 1: including mine.
- 1:54Speaker 4: To prove He scanned my brain to prove.
- 1:58Speaker 1: That we can't actually heal our brains and change the
- 2:03Speaker 1: most important organ in our bodies. You're also a dear
- 2:08Speaker 1: human and I am very honored that you're here. So
- 2:11Speaker 1: you make this complicated stuff so easy to understand. So
- 2:16Speaker 1: let's understand it a little bit. Let's start with our beginning.
- 2:21Speaker 1: You scan my brain, and I was really scared of
- 2:23Speaker 1: what he was going to find in there. But I'm
- 2:26Speaker 1: so glad that you did because meeting you was a
- 2:29Speaker 1: huge part of me changing my life. So can you
- 2:33Speaker 1: just talk about the process and what you learned about
- 2:35Speaker 1: my brain.
- 2:38Speaker 6: I'm so honored to be here, and so I'm a
- 2:43Speaker 6: psychiatrist for forty five years now, the only medical specialty
- 2:48Speaker 6: that virtually never looks at the organ you treat and
- 2:53Speaker 6: I'm a psychiatrist, right, I'm trained to diagnose crazy, and
- 3:00Speaker 6: that was crazy. And so about thirty five years I
- 3:03Speaker 6: started looking at the brain with a study called spacked
- 3:06Speaker 6: spect which looks at blood flow and activity. It looks
- 3:10Speaker 6: at how your brain works, and it basically shows three
- 3:14Speaker 6: things good activity, too little, or too much. And when
- 3:19Speaker 6: you and I talked, you were worried about your memory,
- 3:25Speaker 6: but also struggling with anxiety and sadness. And you had
- 3:31Speaker 6: a wicked concussion actually two if I remember right.
- 3:36Speaker 4: And he can see that on the scan. If you've
- 3:39Speaker 4: had a TRAM.
- 3:40Speaker 6: I was expecting your brain to be worse than it was.
- 3:43Speaker 6: You actually have a stunningly beautiful brain. And that's not
- 3:47Speaker 6: a pickup line, although with Jenny, I'd figure out the
- 3:52Speaker 6: best one I ever had. Right, No, she had a
- 3:56Speaker 6: really beautiful brain. You could see the concussion, which is
- 3:59Speaker 6: in the left front side of her brain, but her emotional.
- 4:04Speaker 5: Brain was really busy, and the goal was to calm
- 4:10Speaker 5: it down.
- 4:12Speaker 6: And what I get so excited about what I've learned
- 4:15Speaker 6: from almost three hundred thousand scans is you're not stuck
- 4:18Speaker 6: with the brain you.
- 4:19Speaker 5: Have, even if you've been bad to your brain.
- 4:23Speaker 6: I did the big NFL study when the NFL was
- 4:26Speaker 6: sort of lying about traumatic brain injury in football. Eighty
- 4:29Speaker 6: percent of our players got better when we put them
- 4:32Speaker 6: on a rehabilitation program. And when we looked at your brain,
- 4:38Speaker 6: it's like, okay, now we have a map.
- 4:41Speaker 5: Let's repair this part.
- 4:44Speaker 6: But then let's also teach you not to believe every
- 4:47Speaker 6: stupid thing you thought.
- 4:50Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite takeaways that you'll give is
- 4:53Speaker 1: don't believe every stupid thing you think.
- 4:56Speaker 4: That's so true.
- 4:58Speaker 1: Why do we think so many stupid things?
- 5:01Speaker 6: Because there's nowhere in school where someone taught you to
- 5:06Speaker 6: manage your mind. And so your mind, as crazy as
- 5:11Speaker 6: it might be, ends.
- 5:12Speaker 5: Up managing you.
- 5:15Speaker 6: And I was twenty eight years old in my psychiatric residency.
- 5:18Speaker 6: So I was an Army doctor for a long time,
- 5:21Speaker 6: and I trained at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center
- 5:24Speaker 6: in Washington, DC, and I'm twenty eight and one of
- 5:27Speaker 6: our professors said, you have to teach your patients not
- 5:30Speaker 6: to believe every stupid thing they think. And it was
- 5:35Speaker 6: this huge epiphany for me because I was believing every
- 5:39Speaker 6: stupid thing I thought. And I call them ants automatic
- 5:47Speaker 6: negative thoughts.
- 5:49Speaker 5: And one day I had a really hard day at work.
- 5:52Speaker 6: I saw four suicidal patients.
- 5:55Speaker 5: It's stressful for me.
- 5:57Speaker 6: I saw two couples who hated each other, the two
- 6:00Speaker 6: teenagers who ran away from home.
- 6:02Speaker 5: And I get home and nobody's.
- 6:04Speaker 6: Home, and I turn on the lights and all of
- 6:06Speaker 6: a sudden, I have this ant infestation in.
- 6:09Speaker 5: My kitchen and thousands of them.
- 6:14Speaker 6: And I'm horrified, and I get the raid out and
- 6:16Speaker 6: I'm cleaning them up, and it just dawned on me
- 6:20Speaker 6: ants automatic negative thoughts. My patients are infested. And so
- 6:27Speaker 6: the next day to work, I brought that can of
- 6:31Speaker 6: ants bring and I put it on my coffee table
- 6:35Speaker 6: and I'm like, we're going to kill the ants.
- 6:39Speaker 5: And then.
- 6:41Speaker 6: It's like and all, and they're different kinds of ants.
- 6:45Speaker 5: I think one of your aunts was fortune telling.
- 6:48Speaker 6: Where you begin to predict the worst thing that's going
- 6:51Speaker 6: to happen and then you make it worse.
- 6:54Speaker 5: That is the seed of anxiety.
- 7:00Speaker 6: And the only people who should be predicting the worst
- 7:03Speaker 6: is your contract lawyer. I mean, they should be protecting you.
- 7:07Speaker 6: But if your negative and predicting the worst, that's bad
- 7:13Speaker 6: for your brain. It's chronically stressful for your body and
- 7:17Speaker 6: you're more likely to put fat on your belly because
- 7:22Speaker 6: chronic exposure to cortisol, this stress hormone, is just so
- 7:27Speaker 6: bad for you. And I just published a study on
- 7:30Speaker 6: two thousand patients on negativity. If you tend to be
- 7:34Speaker 6: biased toward what's wrong, that's really bad for your brain.
- 7:40Speaker 6: And so we talk about starting our day with today
- 7:43Speaker 6: is going to be a great day.
- 7:45Speaker 5: When you go to bed at night, go what went
- 7:47Speaker 5: well today?
- 7:49Speaker 4: I said that this morning.
- 7:50Speaker 1: By the way, I love that today is going to
- 7:52Speaker 1: be a great day, and it's happening.
- 8:05Speaker 5: And so here's the exercise. And it's not hard.
- 8:09Speaker 6: Whenever you feel sad or mad, or nervous or out
- 8:13Speaker 6: of control, write down what you're thinking. Identify what kind
- 8:18Speaker 6: of amp So there's nine different types, like all are
- 8:23Speaker 6: nothing thinking less than thinking, which is rampant in young
- 8:30Speaker 6: people now because of social media. It's public knowledge.
- 8:34Speaker 5: You know.
- 8:34Speaker 6: I've seen some really cool people like Jenny and Justin
- 8:38Speaker 6: Bieber and Miley Cyrus and many of them go I'm
- 8:42Speaker 6: not enough. And in my head, I'm like, if you're
- 8:45Speaker 6: not enough, who will be? But that's the mother thought
- 8:51Speaker 6: that is driving this epidemic of depression in young girls,
- 8:58Speaker 6: I'm not enough, so that's less than and they're labeling
- 9:04Speaker 6: and oh he's a conservative.
- 9:06Speaker 5: Or he's a liberal. We have to stop that. It's
- 9:09Speaker 5: so bad for our society because then you can't listen
- 9:13Speaker 5: to each other.
- 9:15Speaker 6: Fortune telling, mind reading, guilt beating, having grown up Roman Catholic,
- 9:22Speaker 6: to pass guilt one oh one guilt one oh two
- 9:26Speaker 6: advanced guilt.
- 9:28Speaker 5: And you should write this down whenever you think you should.
- 9:30Speaker 4: Do I should down you guys, just change that.
- 9:35Speaker 5: Do I want to do it? Choose me?
- 9:39Speaker 6: Or does it fit my goals to do it? Like
- 9:44Speaker 6: I'll get the thought I should see my mom. My
- 9:46Speaker 6: mom's ninety four, she's awesome.
- 9:48Speaker 5: You should see it. But then you won't because it
- 9:51Speaker 5: just you feel bad about it.
- 9:52Speaker 6: But if you go I should see my mom, it's
- 9:55Speaker 6: like I want to see my mom, or it fits
- 9:57Speaker 6: my goals. She's ninety four, who knows how long she'll
- 10:00Speaker 6: be here? And then you're not driven by guilt, you're
- 10:05Speaker 6: driven by goal oriented behavior. I should do it now,
- 10:11Speaker 6: I want to do it, or it fits my goals
- 10:15Speaker 6: to do it. So whenever you feel bad, write it
- 10:18Speaker 6: down and then go is it true?
- 10:21Speaker 1: This is the one tell them that is it the
- 10:23Speaker 1: truth scenarios?
- 10:26Speaker 4: Is it true? Is it absolutely true? How you feel
- 10:30Speaker 4: about it? Am I'm a teacher, I'm in my book.
- 10:35Speaker 4: I loved it so much.
- 10:37Speaker 5: I love you so much.
- 10:39Speaker 6: See the people who get better that come to see
- 10:42Speaker 6: me actually do the things.
- 10:44Speaker 5: I ask them to do.
- 10:46Speaker 6: I'm very effective if you're compliant. If you argue with
- 10:50Speaker 6: me and you don't do anything, I'm terrible. But this
- 10:55Speaker 6: is a process I learned from Byron Katie, who's a
- 10:57Speaker 6: friend of mine. And I was going through a loss,
- 11:03Speaker 6: through a period of grief, and I just couldn't get myself.
- 11:06Speaker 5: Out of it.
- 11:07Speaker 6: And then I found her book, Loving What Is and
- 11:10Speaker 6: she and I are published by the same imprint at
- 11:12Speaker 6: Random House, and I'm like, I want to meet her.
- 11:15Speaker 5: And I met her.
- 11:16Speaker 6: I scanned everybody in her family and yeah, it was great.
- 11:19Speaker 6: But what I took away from it is, whenever you
- 11:23Speaker 6: feel sad, mad, nervous, out of control, rte down what
- 11:26Speaker 6: you're thinking and then go is it true my wife
- 11:32Speaker 6: never listens to me.
- 11:34Speaker 5: I've had that thought, and I'm like, well, is that true?
- 11:39Speaker 6: Now I've written nineteen national public television specials about the brain,
- 11:44Speaker 6: and she's listened to every script at least three times,
- 11:48Speaker 6: so I was like, no, not true. The second question
- 11:51Speaker 6: is it absolutely true? With one hundred percent certainty? You
- 11:54Speaker 6: know you are not enough? For example. The third question
- 12:00Speaker 6: how does that thought make you feel?
- 12:03Speaker 5: Small?
- 12:04Speaker 6: Diminished, anxious, worthless, helpless, hopeless?
- 12:09Speaker 5: Fourth question is how would you feel if you didn't
- 12:11Speaker 5: have the thought? If you couldn't have the thought? Fine,
- 12:15Speaker 5: what that teaches you? It's your thoughts that make you
- 12:18Speaker 5: feel bad.
- 12:19Speaker 6: So if you want to feel better, take each thought captive.
- 12:26Speaker 6: So for those of you who know the New Testament
- 12:31Speaker 6: tewod Corinthians ten to five, take each thought captive, or
- 12:34Speaker 6: be transformed by the renewing of your mind, which means
- 12:37Speaker 6: don't believe every stupid thing you think. But my favorite
- 12:42Speaker 6: question is five. Five is take the original question and
- 12:47Speaker 6: just flip.
- 12:48Speaker 5: It, turn it to the opposite. I am enough?
- 12:55Speaker 6: Well, I have like lots of examples where I am enough.
- 13:00Speaker 6: And that's where you meditate rather than the thought that
- 13:07Speaker 6: is tormenting you.
- 13:11Speaker 1: That right there has changed my life. Can you do
- 13:13Speaker 1: it to me really quickly? Okay, here's my negative thought. Wait,
- 13:16Speaker 1: what's the negative thought that you have?
- 13:18Speaker 4: On repeat?
- 13:19Speaker 1: Somebody, we excise me someone, right, nobody cares what I
- 13:28Speaker 1: have to say?
- 13:29Speaker 5: Is that true? Well, so no one is an all
- 13:34Speaker 5: or nothing thought.
- 13:35Speaker 6: Whenever you're think in words like always, never, everyone, no one,
- 13:42Speaker 6: it's black or white, right, And so is it true
- 13:47Speaker 6: that no one cares about what you have to say?
- 13:53Speaker 6: So if one is no, two is automatically no, automatically no.
- 13:58Speaker 6: So how does that thought make you feel angry?
- 14:05Speaker 4: Frustrated?
- 14:06Speaker 1: Yeah, and like you're dumb, like you don't have anything
- 14:10Speaker 1: valuable to give the world.
- 14:14Speaker 5: And how would you feel if you didn't have that thought?
- 14:16Speaker 1: How would you feel if you didn't have that thought.
- 14:19Speaker 1: I would feel great. I would feel like people are
- 14:23Speaker 1: listening to me, and I would feel like I have
- 14:27Speaker 1: something to give the world.
- 14:29Speaker 6: And so if we take the opposite of no one
- 14:33Speaker 6: and don't take the narcissistic opposite, everyone wants to listen
- 14:38Speaker 6: to me because they don't, right, but some people want
- 14:44Speaker 6: to listen to me.
- 14:47Speaker 4: Yes, well, that's the thing.
- 14:50Speaker 1: This is about training the mind, right, and we have
- 14:54Speaker 1: to be really deliberate and intentional about doing that. Otherwise
- 14:59Speaker 1: we are control by our thoughts and that is a
- 15:02Speaker 1: road to nowhere.
- 15:04Speaker 6: And you have to practice. I'm very excited it's public knowledge.
- 15:13Speaker 5: Julius Randall is my patient.
- 15:15Speaker 6: He's NBA superstar playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves. And when
- 15:19Speaker 6: I first met him, he was a mess, and he
- 15:22Speaker 6: did scan my brain just like you did.
- 15:24Speaker 5: He was smoking pot, he was depressed, he was about
- 15:27Speaker 5: to get divorced.
- 15:27Speaker 6: And I looked at him and I said, I'm going
- 15:29Speaker 6: to be your best investment.
- 15:31Speaker 5: Because if he got divorced, that cost him one hundred
- 15:33Speaker 5: million dollars, so I'm much.
- 15:35Speaker 6: I am going to be your best investment. And I
- 15:38Speaker 6: taught him to kill the ants. But it's not something
- 15:42Speaker 6: you you know, like when he shoots free throws. He
- 15:46Speaker 6: does hundreds of free throws a week, so he can
- 15:50Speaker 6: make the two at the end of the game tonight
- 15:54Speaker 6: against Denver. Right, you have to practice this because your
- 16:00Speaker 6: thoughts and thoughts come from all sorts of places, and
- 16:03Speaker 6: your thoughts might not even be yours, maybe from your
- 16:06Speaker 6: mom or your dad, or your grandparents, or your friends
- 16:11Speaker 6: or the music you listen to.
- 16:13Speaker 5: They may not be yours. So you just I just
- 16:16Speaker 5: want you to watch.
- 16:18Speaker 6: And one of the other techniques we talked about is
- 16:21Speaker 6: give your mind a name, so.
- 16:24Speaker 4: That you give your mind a name like any name.
- 16:27Speaker 6: So like I named my mind after my pet raccoon.
- 16:31Speaker 6: I had a pet raccoon when I was sixteen. I'd
- 16:34Speaker 6: loved her, but she was a trouble maker. She tepeed
- 16:38Speaker 6: my mother's bathroom, she ate the fish.
- 16:40Speaker 5: Out of my sister's aquarium. She'd leave raccoon pooh in
- 16:44Speaker 5: my shoes. And that's my mind. It just stirs up trouble.
- 16:49Speaker 6: So if I get the storm, I go, oh, Hermie,
- 16:53Speaker 6: that's her name.
- 16:54Speaker 5: I'm going to put her in the.
- 16:55Speaker 6: Cage where Now what I do, metaphorically, just in my mind,
- 16:59Speaker 6: put her on her back, can tickle her. Because raccoons
- 17:01Speaker 6: have like two hundred sounds. You just don't have to
- 17:05Speaker 6: believe it. I have a police officer I see who
- 17:09Speaker 6: is a hero because he rescued thirty people.
- 17:12Speaker 5: In the Las Vegas shooting.
- 17:13Speaker 6: You remember a couple of years ago, the guy from
- 17:16Speaker 6: the fifty six floor, and he named his mind Andy
- 17:21Speaker 6: after his pet parrot, who only had six phrases. But
- 17:24Speaker 6: it's like the same thing over and over. You're not
- 17:27Speaker 6: good enough, you're not worthy enough, you're not enough. And
- 17:33Speaker 6: so now he just metaphorically in his mind, takes the
- 17:39Speaker 6: top of the cage and just puts it over the
- 17:42Speaker 6: cover into the cage in his head.
- 17:44Speaker 4: Right, you just write it down. Yeah, that's how you
- 17:47Speaker 4: have to do it.
- 17:48Speaker 1: Okay, I want to know what are the most important
- 17:50Speaker 1: things everybody here can try to implement after today that
- 17:55Speaker 1: will give them a healthier brain, because, like you said before,
- 18:00Speaker 1: we can change the health.
- 18:02Speaker 4: Of our brain.
- 18:03Speaker 5: So brain health is three things. Brain envy, you got
- 18:10Speaker 5: to care about it. I always say Freud was wrong.
- 18:12Speaker 6: Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. The
- 18:16Speaker 6: only organ ware size matter is your brain. So love
- 18:20Speaker 6: your brain and then avoid things that hurt it. You
- 18:24Speaker 6: just have to know the list, and quite frankly, most
- 18:26Speaker 6: seven year olds know the list and then do something
- 18:31Speaker 6: every day that helps it.
- 18:32Speaker 5: And the mother tiny habit.
- 18:35Speaker 6: Whenever you're going to do something, just ask yourself is
- 18:38Speaker 6: this good for my brain or bad for it?
- 18:41Speaker 5: And does it make the world better?
- 18:44Speaker 6: If you can answer that one question with information and love,
- 18:50Speaker 6: your brain's going to be great.
- 18:52Speaker 5: And then take an Omega three fatty assid every.
- 18:54Speaker 4: Day from brain empty.
- 18:57Speaker 1: Okay, you know this, I Choose me is all about
- 19:01Speaker 1: actively deciding that every day we want to take care
- 19:05Speaker 1: of ourselves. So I'm curious other than waking up and
- 19:08Speaker 1: saying today is going to be a great day, which
- 19:11Speaker 1: really works. You guys, what how do you, doctor Amon
- 19:16Speaker 1: choose yourself every day?
- 19:19Speaker 6: I asked that self my question, and I choose good
- 19:22Speaker 6: because I'm choosing me because I love me, you love you,
- 19:26Speaker 6: I love me.
- 19:26Speaker 4: I love me too. That's the thing, you, guys. It's
- 19:31Speaker 4: all about you. Love you, don't you?
- 19:32Speaker 6: So doing the right thing is never about deprivation.
- 19:35Speaker 5: If you have that mindset, you won't do it.
- 19:38Speaker 6: It's always about love that I only love food that
- 19:43Speaker 6: loves me back, because you're in a relationship with food.
- 19:48Speaker 5: And it's like you don't drink.
- 19:50Speaker 6: It's like, well, why would I put a disinfect in
- 19:53Speaker 6: my body?
- 19:53Speaker 5: Now I don't drink.
- 19:57Speaker 6: It's these decisions that get filled turned through the question.
- 20:01Speaker 6: And one of my favorite exercises when I go to
- 20:04Speaker 6: bed at night, did this last night?
- 20:05Speaker 5: I do it every night. I say a prayer and
- 20:08Speaker 5: then I go it went well today?
- 20:09Speaker 6: And this is totally making the highlight reel tonight. Go
- 20:16Speaker 6: hour by hour looking at your day only through the
- 20:21Speaker 6: lens of what you loved about the day. The bad
- 20:25Speaker 6: stuff will show up and just imagine a big broom.
- 20:27Speaker 5: Sweep it away. Not today, right now? What did I
- 20:32Speaker 5: love about the day?
- 20:33Speaker 6: You train your mind to look for what's right rather
- 20:37Speaker 6: than focusing on what's wrong.
- 20:39Speaker 5: And do not watch the news in the.
- 20:42Speaker 6: Morning, because people watch the news in the morning are
- 20:44Speaker 6: twenty seven percent less happy in the afternoon.
- 20:48Speaker 1: Okay, take that and put it in your hat. I
- 20:52Speaker 1: mean the things that this man.
- 20:54Speaker 4: Can teach all of us. Get his books.
- 20:57Speaker 1: Your books speak to me on such a level that
- 21:00Speaker 1: I could comprehend and incorporate into my life, which I had.
- 21:04Speaker 1: I'd read tons of books before, I had tried all
- 21:07Speaker 1: kinds of therapies. But when I spoke to you, things
- 21:12Speaker 1: landed differently, and I chose myself. I chose to love
- 21:16Speaker 1: myself enough to take better care of myself because of you.
- 21:23Speaker 4: I love you. Thank you so much. Please give it
- 21:28Speaker 4: up for doctor Daniel Aman.