Psychiatrist Daniel Amen Answers Brain Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

why though is my anxiety through the roof today what do you want from me brain there's a lot of that going on hi this is dr. Daniel Eamon I'm a double board certified psychiatrist founder of Amon clinics and the author of the end of mental illness this is brain support [Music] Rory ban well why does your brain sometimes completely forget common words I just couldn't remember drawer like what interrupt signals that happen in your brain it can be due to a lack of sleep not eating negative thoughts low blood sugar that happens once a week I wouldn't worry about it but if it's beginning to happen 2 3 4 times a week and if it's worse than it was 10 years ago it actually could be a sign of impending trouble and that's where you want to really begin to look at your brain habits if you have hypertension high blood pressure its blood pressure goes up blood flow to the brain goes down if you have any form of heart disease or vascular disease like a heart arrhythmia if you had general anesthesia at some point in the past that can lower blood flow if you don't exercise the simple way for each of these risk factors it's wokai what is it how do you know if you have it and what to do about it and what to do about low blood flow exercise boosts blood flow to the brain there simple things like eating beets cayenne pepper oregano rosemary all of those things have been found to increase blood flow as have simple supplements like gingko biloba Dillon underscore Saunders right brain people how do you turn off your left brains well we really can't turn off a part of our brain dolphins can dolphins actually sleep with one hemisphere asleep at a time but humans can't do that you had literal have to cut this area of the brain called the corpus callosum it's like so many wires connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain that it's just not possible to turn it off there are some people who are born without corpus callosum so then the sides of the brain are not talking to each other and they have some very interesting neuropsychological findings but ultimately you want both sides connected to each other day a a warrior why does my brain start to go 60 miles an hour when I'm trying to go to sleep as your start to sleep your frontal lobes front part of your brain start to get quiet which unfortunately takes the breaks off your emotional brain and so this is happening you need a routine and habits you get your emotional brain back under control if the thoughts are repetitive they just circle have a little journal by your bed and write them down and then ask yourself so what can I do about it and what can I not do about it but the act of writing it down helps to get it out of your head when I go to bed I say a prayer very intentionally specifically I review what went well today and I'm looking for at least three things I love it because you know like you I'm busy I often don't take time during the day to just go that was awesome how many special moments are in your day even during a pandemic you just don't think about them and when you do it right before bed it sets your dreams up to actually be more positive and REM sleep dreams sleep is one of the most important healing parts of sleep at koi wolfie anybody else having some severe PTSD attacks during Koren I feel like my overall mental health has tanked over the past two months I'm losing my appetite massive anxiety to tax and I'm having some intense intrusive thoughts I feel for you the term I use is we are now experiencing a global amygdala hijacking so the amygdala deep in your brain is this structure it's in the shape of an island that responds to fear what's happening in the world is activating our amygdala and it's making very many people feeling anxious and stress I think our baseline stress levels went up about 30 percent so if yours were already heightened now you can be having massive panic attacks and intrusive thoughts mental hygiene is just as important is washing your hands we have to disinfect our thoughts and kill the ants the automatic negative thoughts that steal our happiness you want to become masterful at diaphragmatic breathing and there's actually a very specific pattern that will calm down your amygdala and activate your frontal lobe so you'll make better decisions three seconds in so big breath hold it for a second and then take six seconds out and hold it for a second so it's an 11 second breath but if you do that 10 times it'll actually trigger a relaxation response in your brain and begin to give you some control you know I think it's something they should actually teach second graders do this breathing it's the first step in getting control of your anxiety Jeff Galinski as I'm getting older I'm noticing that if I spend ten plus hours working on my computer on again day not typical I often have difficulty shutting my brain down at night to sleep when I wake the next day I'm often plagued by a sort of a hangover from the day before anyone else this is actually common the lights from the computer may be sending interrupt signals to your brain before they unleash digital technology onto the world there's actually no neuroscience study on the impact of being flooded with blue lights from screens many of my colleagues and I recommend blue light blockers especially if you have any screen on after dark blue light in the late afternoon in the evening begins to turn off the production of melatonin which sort of naturally helps us go to sleep plus if you're 10 hours plus on a computer screen you're not getting the exercise you know the best natural treatment for depression and cognitive impairment actually seems to be exercised at hogg underscore mile so I got enough sleep ate breakfast took my meds I'm hydrated don't have a crazy busy day and stable in my relationship so why the is my anxiety through the roof today I can feel my heartbeat in my eyes what do you want from me brain anxiety disorders are still the most common mental health issue in the world begin to put a daily stress reduction practice in your life for me I love table tennis it's exercise it's distracting it's good for me a lot of people love meditation there's the kind of meditation I really like that we study called loving-kindness a huge fan of hypnosis self hypnosis certain music will activate you and make you anxious a lot of other music will actually calm and soothe you so I'm a huge fan of having a daily relaxation practice to get control and then would I teach my patients is whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control write down what you're thinking then ask yourself if it's trip thoughts are automatic they just happen and what most people don't know is the thoughts in your head often lie to you they often terrorize you I teach my patients how to kill the ants the automatic negative thoughts you have to develop an internal ant eater patrolling the streets of your mind and just learning this technique is just so helpful Rylee be rights why does my brain provide only wonderful dialogue when I shower and why is it always when there's shampoo in my hair so I can't get out to write it dad I like this away when you're in the shower and you're doing something you know how to do that basically your cerebellum is doing it it's sort of an automatic process the rest of your brain can relax and you're distracted which is often when creativity flows it's happened to me a lot over the years I just have something did I get out of the shower quickly write it down and then get back in and finish it just have some mechanism to capture it and you'll be able to remember it as you rinse your hair and then write down your thought and if you can't then we have to boost your brains help ah yah k h v NX y'all ever forget what you're talking about while you're talking it happens to me so often that I swear I'm getting amnesia I hear this actually a lot in my patients who have a DD or ADHD because they have so many thoughts while they're talking they actually get lost do you notice you have a short attention span you're easily distracted you tend to be late you're disorganized you tonight and you might say or do things impulsively when I first read that question I go huh I wonder if she has a BB if it's not that and it's happening so often I worry that your brain might not be as healthy as it could be and that's where I would begin to explore those 11 major risk factors that steal people's minds and then mnemonic I call bright minds the B we talked about is blood flow R is retirement and aging when people stop learning their brain starts dying I is inflammation if you have low omega-3 fatty acid levels if you have an unhealthy gut if you have periodontal disease you're not really good at taking care of your teeth all of those things can actually increase inflammation and negatively impact your memory and your brain said detai why doesn't anybody talk about the brain fog that comes along with anxiety and depression it makes me feel like I can't function normally and I thought I was going crazy until I looked it up and realized that it happens to a lot of people can we start talking about these things more so brain fog is when you feel like your brain is in mud that it just takes more effort to think and respond then you think is reasonable it is very common anxiety because your brain is so focused on negativity or depression where you don't have enough activity in your brain there's one type of depression I call it unfocused but this really low activity in the brain commonly associated with brain fog again you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it if it's headed to the dark place you have to prevent or treat these risk factors I've been talking about so bright minds B is for blood flow ours retirement and aging eyes inflammation G is genetic stuff like anxiety and depression run in families but also the negative thinking the dysfunctional thinking patterns can also be modeled in families I often say genes are not a death sentence what they should be is a wake-up call Gene's love the gun it's what happened to us in our behavior that pulls the trigger so if I know I have anxiety in my family then I'm gonna work even harder to prevent it the h and bright minds is head trauma a major cause of psychiatric problems nobody knows about because most psychiatrists actually never looked at the brain I actually have a database of a hundred and sixty thousand scans on patients from a hundred and fifty five countries and if you said hey Daniel single most important thing you learned from the world's largest brain imaging database related to psychiatry I would say mild traumatic brain injury is a major cause of psychiatric problems if you don't get the right diagnosis you'll never end up with the right treatment plan the TN bright minds is for toxins if you have brain fog anxiety and depression I want to make sure you don't have mold in your house mold is a very common cause of brain fog anxiety and depression is one of the toxins along with marijuana is the toxin alcohol can be toxic of all the firefighters I've treated over 90% have toxic looking brains because of the carbon monoxide they breed or the cyanide they breathe from burning furniture burning buildings and from fires anxiety and depression they're not single or simple disorders and if you want to take care of the brain fog you have to become serious about brain health the bottom line is this after looking at all these scans most psychiatric problems are not mental health issues rather they are brain health issues and this one idea changes everything get your brain right and your mind will follow and I'm convinced that the end of mental illness will begin with a revolution in brain health needy my mental health really do be like arrows up arrows down arrows up arrows down how do you fix a broken brain please I've been talking about that this gives me an opportunity to finish our bright minds mnemonic if you want to keep your brain healthy or fix a broken brain you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind bright minds is the mnemonic blood flow retirement and aging inflammation genetics head trauma toxin and is something I called Mindstorms which is abnormal electrical activity especially in the temporal lobes and it can come from a head injury you could be born with it it causes people to be up and down just like the icons you used sometimes anti-seizure medications can actually be really helpful to stabilize things sometimes a ketogenic diet can actually help I found that can be really helpful in balancing the brains their treatments like neurofeedback to help reset the brain the second eye and bright minds is immunity and infections and I have no idea how prophetic that would be right before a pandemic and let me be really clear about this your best defense against covet 19 is not gonna be a drug or a vaccine your best defense is your immune system so keeping it healthy is critical you do that by what you eat by keeping your gut healthy by making sure you have healthy vitamin D levels vitamin C levels zinc magnesium selenium all of those are nutrients to support your immune system but this is why you need to stay away from sugar and foods that quickly turn to sugar because all of those are pro-inflammatory and can damage your immune system as can gluten and dairy the N in bright minds is neurohormone disorders your thyroid is high or low you're gonna be anxious or depressed if your testosterone is low odds are you're gonna be sad have no motivation and no libido for a girl or guy the Dia's diabesity this combination of you have high blood sugar your pre-diabetic or diabetic and overweight or obese as your weight goes up the actual physical size and function of your brain goes down which should scare the fat off anyone and then the S in bright minds is sleep getting your sleep right is so important so if you want to fix a broken brain you can that's the exciting news that comes out of our imaging work you are not stuck with the brain you have you can make it better but you have to love it you have to treat it right men a new docu-series with Justin Bieber I've been Justin's doctor for the last five years he would come and then he'd go and then calm and then go and finally married Halley and he's kept coming because she made it more than a year ago he walked into my office and he said my brain can have problems just like my heart can have problems if you told me I had heart problems I'd do everything you said I'm gonna start doing everything you say and then he got remarkably better you can be better this is dr. Daniel Amen for brains support to learn more about my work you can get my book the end of mental illness or go to Amen Clinics comm and learn about our clinics around the world yeah big thank you to Wired and hope all of you stay safe

Channel: WIRED

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Id: H-u6a66rTpQ

Length: 19min 13sec (1153 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 16 2020