3 Quick Steps to Stop Negative Thinking Now!

It’s possible to think positively if you KILL YOUR ANTS!

We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with fear and bad news that triggers our automatic negative thinking—ANTS! Need proof? Just turn on the TV or cruise through the net. Doom and gloom stories dominate the headlines—because fear makes us pay attention.

In fact, our brains are wired to focus on the negative in order to avoid things that might hurt us. Fear definitely serves a purpose, but what happens when all we seem to focus on are negative thoughts? Bad things. Take a look at these compelling facts:

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3 steps to kill those ANTs

Practice these steps each time you feel automatic thoughts entering your brain. By labeling, investigating, and then talking back to your automatic negative thoughts, you’ll turn your mind into "an ANT ghost town."

Amen Clinics has helped thousands of people manage stress, depression, and anxiety. Contact us today to schedule an appointment at any of our six clinics, nationwide.

We want you to become a brain warrior for life. Call us at 1-844-203-4703.

4 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Stress and Anxiety RIGHT NOW!

All of us know the feeling when stress is running wild through our body. Everything you think about is influenced by the anxiety and worry. It’s horrible, right?

You can probably relate to this since about 30% of people who visit their primary care physician are actually there as a result of stress-induced symptoms. Things like headaches, muscle tension, stomach and digestive discomfort, anxiety, and depression are tied to stress.

The pain that results from these symptoms can produce a deep sense of futility and hopelessness. In fact, people struggling like this often think the pain is permanent.

But it’s simply NOT true!

According to Dr. Amen, you might not be able to eliminate the stressors in your life entirely, but you can start feeling better—immediately!

Along with his wife, health and wellness expert Tana Amen, Dr. Amen has created a short video to teach you four simple steps to reduce the negative impact of stress in your life.

Just watch below to start pushing your stress level down.

You can download this MP3 here free!

Here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll learn about managing your stress in their information-packed video.

In addition to this helpful video, we have a special gift for you! Subscribe to our newsletter here and you will receive a free MP3 download to help calm your anxiety.

Amen Clinics has helped thousands of people manage stress, depression, and anxiety.  Contact us today to schedule an appointment at any of our six clinics, nationwide.

Call us at 1-844-203-4703.

We want you to become a brain warrior for life.

--- Begin Transcript ---

Dr. Amen: Hi. We’re so glad you’re with us. What we’re going to talk today is what stress looks like in your life. Now, I often look at her and go, ‘That’s what stress looks like.’

Tana: Okay, for real. So, we often say doctors tell you what to do but nurses show you how to do it. So that’s what we’re going to do today. We’re going to tell you what stress looks like and we’re going to give you some very practical strategies to fight it.

Dr. Amen: So, stress is actually one of the greatest killers in our society. It’s estimated that 30% of people who go see their primary care physician are actually there for result of stress.

Tana: Absolutely.

Dr. Amen: So, could be headaches or tummy aches or in my situation I got tension in the back of my neck or I have trouble sleeping.

Tana: Right, but almost every disease including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, almost every disease that we know of is made worse or aggravated by unmanaged stress. Now, let’s be clear. Stress, you can’t avoid stress but do you have the right strategies to manage it and make it so it’s not aggravating you because it decreases your immunity dramatically.

Dr. Amen: Well, an exposure to stress hormones is associated with depression and Cortisol – one of the stress hormones, actually put fat on your belly and has been shown to kill cells in the memory centers of your brain. So I remember a period of time, I went through grief it’s like I had brain fog. I mean, I just couldn’t remember things. One of the most exciting things is that same area, it’s called the hippocampus on the inside of your temporal lobes that affects shrivels and dies you can’t remember anything, but it also has stem cells in that specific area of the brain so that by counteracting stress, you can make it bigger and fatter and think in a more healthy way.

Tana: Now, help me out with this because a lot of people think of depression as just being very sad and they think of anxiety as being very upset and uptight but in fact, they’re very closely related. Now, I suffered from depression for a while after I was diagnosed with cancer when I was 23 and I tell you …

 Dr. Amen: And they took your thyroid away.

Tana: They took my thyroid away. So sometimes it’s related to medical issues and you want to know that. Tip #1: Get your important numbers checked because sometimes it’s connected. You will actually feel physical symptoms connected to, or psychological symptoms connected to your numbers being out of whack.

Dr. Amen: So let’s just talk about that a little bit so that you know what we mean. I mean, we talk about that in our courses but it’s really important to know what your CBC is like, your Complete Blood Count because if your red blood cells are low, people are anemic and they feel stressed, they feel anxious.

Tana: And women are very prone to that.

Dr. Amen: And if your thyroid is high or if it’s low, you can feel anxious, stressed or depressed. So, that’s also really critical. Something called C - reactive protein which is a measure of inflammation and when inflammation goes up in your body, brain function goes down and you can feel really stressed and upset.

Tana: Well, and B-vitamins. So simple but so many things deplete them so you have to know that. But the point I wanted to make is that, so with me it was thyroid but it was also psychological after being diagnosed with cancer and having to drop out of school, you know, it was that combination of the physical and the psychological and it sent me into this deep depression along with anxiety and I didn’t really understand what was happening. So that spinning on thoughts, not being able to sleep at all, all night long, you know having GI upset. So, these are some of the symptoms that you might feel – headaches, fatigue, that wired tired feeling and feeling so upset like it’s so painful. Sometimes you feel like, ‘God, I just can’t get out of my skin.’ It’s just awful. It’s a terrible, terrible feeling and you want to know and pay attention and recognize when those things are happening.

Dr. Amen: Or you might have an ANT attack. You know from our work we talk about Automatic Negative Thoughts – the thoughts that come into your mind automatically and ruin your day. So it’s just negative thought, negative thought. You’re predicting the worse. You’re focusing on the negative and, you know, I often think of it sometimes like a little mouse on an exercise wheel and the mouse can’t get off. So it begin to spin on these negative thoughts and then virtually everywhere you look, something’s not right, something’s wrong, something is making you afraid.

Tana: Now, there’s no question you need to see someone get this assessed. Oftentimes, you need some professional help but what’s really exciting is that, in addition to that professional help that you may need, you can either be making this worse or making this better every single day because everything you put on the end of your fork matters and exercise makes a radical, radical difference in managing stress and depression. So, for anxiety, there’s like nothing better than exercise and also the food you eat make incredible difference. So if you’re eating a lot of sugar, it’s going to make anxiety and stress much more aggravated. If you have food allergies …

Dr. Amen: But better initially. So, what a lot of people don’t know is they end up getting hooked on bread, pasta, potatoes, ice cream because in the short run it raises serotonin and makes you feel good. The problem is in the long run you become fat and unhappy and you actually become addicted to these foods. So, getting your nutrition right as Tana is talking about is critical.

Tana: So let’s give them four practical tips to take away, right now, things that will make them feel immediately better. So, tip #1 …

Dr. Amen: So, #1 is Kill the Ants or the automatic negative thoughts that come into your mind and ruin your day. So what you do is whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, write down what you’re thinking. Start keeping a journal and then ask yourself if the thought is true. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

Tana: Right. Now, I really like to add to this one because it’s so powerful. I love this. When you focus on gratitude, it literally changes your brain chemistry. We have before and after scans that show when someone, same person focusing on gratitude versus focusing on anger and hate, and the brain looks completely different. So after you write down the thoughts …

Dr. Amen: So that’s number 2. So, where you bring your attention determines how you feel. So, if you focus on that negative thing, you’re going to feel negative and stressed. If you focus on what you’re grateful for or what I really like, focus on who you appreciate and actually tell them, it completely changes the chemistry in your body.

Tana: So, in addition to writing down your negative thoughts, write down a few things that you’re really grateful for or people that you’re really grateful for.

Dr. Amen: And then let them know that you appreciate them like I appreciate you. So, #3 is exercise.

Tana: So, what I love about exercise is that it’s one of the few things that actually increases both dopamine and serotonin. So that’s exciting because it helps …

Dr. Amen: So it helps you focus, gives you motivation and energy and it decreases your worry. I mean,what a great intervention.

Tana: Right. And here’s the thing. I hear so often, ‘I don’t have time to exercise.’ ‘I don’t have an hour every day.’ That’s just an excuse not to do something that you know works. I don’t care if you get up and you go for a 20-minute brisk walk or you just go for a 10-minute sprint. Okay. It’s anything you do is better than not doing it at all and it’s going to make you feel so much better.

Dr. Amen: And what’s number four?

Tana: Number four are just some quick nutritional tips. So we talk about not eating sugar. What we want you to do is focus on smart carbohydrates because they do help to boost serotonin but we don’t want you getting diabetic and obese in the mean time. So things like sweet potatoes are really helpful or some quinoa, you know, maybe some banana with, you know, on a coconut wrap with some almond butter. Those things are going to still help to boost the serotonin, they’re going to calm you down, make you feel really great but they’re not going to make you sick in the process.

Dr. Amen: Well, and one other thing that’s really important with that, if people eat like you teach them to eat, their blood sugar will become stable and they will feel so much better. When your blood sugar drops low, you feel anxious, nervous and panicky. So, diet and mood totally go together. So, kill the ANTs, focus on what you’re grateful for and appreciate the people in your life, exercise and make sure you get your diet right.

Tana: So, one more thing. We have a gift for you so make sure you subscribe to our newsletter and we have an MP3 download that will help you calm your anxiety.

Dr. Amen: Stay with us.

--- End Transcript ---

A Touchdown for Brain Health in the NFL

I want to applaud Chris Borland of the San Francisco 49ers for making the health of this brain a top priority.

You can listen to and download this MP3 for free: http://bit.ly/1DUeZBD

Borland told ESPN, "from what I’ve researched and what I’ve experienced, I don’t think [playing football is] worth the risk."

Our research supports his decision.

Starting in 2009, Amen Clinics performed the first and largest brain imaging study on active and retired NFL players–at a time when most people were ignoring this critical issue. Our research demonstrated high levels of damage in players, which was not a big surprise. I think even most thoughtful 9-year-olds would think it is a bad idea to repeatedly hit the organ that runs your life, even with a helmet on.

The effects of the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) may not become apparent until a decade or more after they occurred. But what really excited us was that on a "brain smart" program, 80% of the participating research players showed significant improvement, especially in the areas of blood flow, mood and memory. A new research study comes out virtually every week demonstrating that contact sports are bad for developing brains and even bad for brains that are already fully developed.

Borland is the 4th Brain Warrior NFL player age 30 or younger to announce his retirement in the past week. As a society, we need to come to grips with the idea of not allowing children and teens with developing brains to engage in activities that may ruin the rest of their lives.

Being a Maverick Is a Good Thing

Growing up, Dr. Amen’s father called him a "Maverick", which to him was not a good thing.

Dr. Daniel G. Amen MD, clinical neuroscientist, board certified psychiatrist, brain imaging expert, nine-time New York Times best-selling author and founder of the Amen Clinics is a pioneer in the field of psychiatry.

In fact, Dr. Amen’s curiosity and non-conformist nature have driven his forward-thinking work in psychiatry and has helped thousands of people.

In this powerful TEDx presentation, Dr. Amen talks about how the groundbreaking work he and his colleagues have done using SPECT imaging (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) in psychiatry has proven to help not only individuals but also shapes future generations.

Watch the video to discover how Dr. Amen’s journey into psychiatry began and the most important lesson Dr. Amen has learned from building the world’s largest database of brain scans related to behavior—nearly 100,000 scans on patients from 111 countries around the world.

You can listen to and download this mp3 for free: http://bit.ly/1ClPubL

Imaging Changes Everything

In 1972, the army called Dr. Amen’s number and he was trained as an infantry medic. This is where his love of medicine was born. However, being a medic in the Army was not his destiny. He states, "I truly hated the idea of being shot at or sleeping in the mud, so I got myself retrained as an X-ray technician and developed the passion for medical imaging."

During his training, one of his professors said something that would stick with him for the rest of his career, "How do you know unless you look?"

Cardiologists look, neurologists look, and orthopedic doctors look. In fact, virtually every other medical specialist looks at an image of the area they are treating. Yet, current practice for psychiatrists is to look for symptom clusters and then… guess.

Psychiatrists guess? Shockingly, yes. Without imaging, psychiatrists still made diagnoses like they did in 1840… by talking to people and looking for symptom clusters.

Resistance to change

In 1991, Dr. Amen attended an all-day lecture on brain SPECT imaging in psychiatry given by physicians at Creighton University. What was presented was amazing and mirrored findings he and his colleagues experienced early on. Yet, at the same conference researchers complained loudly that clinical psychiatrists SHOULD NOT be using the scans; they were only for their research.

Being a maverick and someone who had personal experience using scans, Dr. Amen knew that this position was dead wrong! He knew that imaging shows us there is a better way.

For the next 25 years, his knowledge of and passion for imaging drove the work he and his colleagues did. They made important discoveries and have used them to impact the way psychiatric illnesses and brain disorders like anxiety, depression, and ADD are diagnosed and treated. They learned that these disorders all had multiple types and treatment needs to be tailored to individual brains, not clusters of symptoms.

Their works proved that imaging really does change everything and that psychiatrists should stop guessing and start looking.

You are not stuck with the brain you have

Dr. Amen and his colleagues performed a study on former NFL (National Football League) players. The players involved in the study all showed high levels of brain damage. At the time, the NFL’s stance was, "they didn’t know if playing football caused long-term brain damage."

The fact was they didn’t want to know.

Though the first revelation was important to recognize, the second part of the study is what really excited Dr. Amen and his colleagues: study participants were put on a brain healthy program and the outcome was incredible. 80% of the players showed improvement in the areas of blood flow, memory and mood.

The NFL study proved that you are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. Brain healthy programs can help reverse brain damage. This is a very exciting new frontier, but the implications are really much wider.

The imaging work done by Dr. Amen and his colleagues also showed mild traumatic brain injury was a major cause of psychiatric illness that can ruin people’s lives. The astounding part – virtually no one knew about it because these people would go to psychiatrists for help with things like temper problems, anxiety, depression and insomnia. And because psychiatrists never look – they never would know the underlying brain injury was present and therefore, could never prescribe effective treatment.

How do you know unless you look?

Redefine crime and punishment

To date, the Amen Clinics have scanned over 500 convicted felons including 90 murderers. This work has demonstrated that people who have trouble in their life often have troubled brains. This is not surprising conclusion. But there is more.

What is surprising is that many of these brains could be rehabilitated. This type of thinking led Dr. Amen to a radical idea. What if we evaluated and treated troubled brains rather than simply warehousing them in toxic, stressful environments?

Dostoevsky once said, "A society should be judged not by how well it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals." Instead of just crime and punishment, we should be thinking about crime evaluation and treatment.

We could save tremendous amounts of money by making these people more functional so when they left prison, they could work, support their families and pay taxes. If we help people change their brains, we help them change their lives.

Change your brain, change a generation

In 1979, Dr. Amen was a second-year medical student and someone in his family became seriously suicidal. He took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist. Over time, he realized that if the psychiatrist helped her, which he did, it would not only save her life but it would also help her children and even her grandchildren.

Years later, this idea was further validated in one of Dr. Amen favorite success stories:

Andrew, a nine-year-old boy, attacked a little girl on the baseball field for no particular reason. At that time, he was also drawing pictures of himself hanging from a tree and shooting other children. Andrew was Columbine, Aurora and Sandy Hook waiting to happen.

Most psychiatrists would have medicated Andrew as they did Eric Harris and the other mass shooters before they committed their devastating crimes. But Dr. Amen’s work with but SPECT imaging told him he had to look at Andrew’s brain to best understand what he needed.

Thankfully, he did just that.

Andrew’s SPECT scan showed a cyst the size of a golf ball occupying the space of his left temporal lobe. No amount of medication or therapy would have helped Andrew. When the cyst was removed, Andrew’s behavior went back to normal. He could once again be the loving boy he used to be.

Andrew is Dr. Amen’s nephew. 18 years later he owns his own home, is employed, and pays taxes; all because someone bothered to look at his brain. Andrew has been a better son and will be a better husband, father and grandfather as a result of SPECT Imaging.

Dr. Amen states it best, "When you have the privilege of changing someone’s brain, you not only change his or her life, you have the opportunity to change generations to come."

Being a maverick is a good thing indeed.

--- Begin Transcript ---

Dr. Amen: In this talk, I’m going to give you the single most important lesson my colleagues and I have learned from looking at 83,000 brain scans but first let me put the lesson into context. I am in the middle of seven children. Growing up my father called me a ‘Maverick’ which to him was not a good thing. In 1972, the army called my number and I was trained as an infantry medic where my love of medicine was born, but since I truly hated the idea of being shot at or sleeping in the mud, I got myself retrained as an X-ray technician and developed the passion for medical imaging. As our professor used to say ‘How do you know unless you look?’ In 1979, when I was a second year medical student, someone in my family became seriously suicidal and I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist. Over time I realized that if he helped her, which he did, it would not only save her life but it would also help her children and even her future grandchildren as they would be shaped by someone who is happier and more stable. I fell in love with psychiatry because I realized it had the potential to change generations of people. In 1991, I went to my first lecture on brain SPECT imaging. SPECT is a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood flow and activity. It looks at how your brain works. SPECT was presented as a tool to help psychiatrist get more information to help their patients. In that one lecture, my two professional loves – medical imaging and psychiatry – came together and quite honestly, revolutionized my life. Over the next 22 years, my colleagues and I would build the world’s largest database of brain scans related to behavior on patients from 93 countries. SPECT basically tells us three things about the brain – good activity, too little, or too much. Here is a set of healthy SPECT scans. Image on the left shows the outside surface of the brain and a healthy scan shows full, even, symmetrical activity. The color is not important. It’s the shape that matters. In the image on the right, red equals the areas of high activity and then a healthy brain they’re typically in the back part of the brain. Here is a healthy scan compared to someone who had two strokes. You can see the holes of activity. Here’s what Alzheimer’s looks like where the back half of the brain is deteriorating. Did you know that Alzheimer’s disease actually starts in the brain 30-50 years before you have any symptoms? Here’s a scan of traumatic brain injury. Your brain is soft and your skull is really hard. Or drug abuse. The real reason not to use drugs, they damage your brain. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, where the front part of the brain typically works too hard so that people cannot turn off their thoughts, and epilepsy where we frequently see areas of increased activity. In 1992, I went to an all-day conference on brain SPECT imaging. It was amazing and mirrored our own early experience using SPECT in psychiatry but at that same meeting, researchers started to complain loudly that clinical psychiatrists like me should not be doing scans; that they were only for their research. Being the maverick and having clinical experience, I thought that was a really dumb idea. Without imaging, psychiatrists then and even now make diagnosis like they did in 1840 when Abraham Lincoln was depressed – by talking to people and looking for symptom clusters. Imaging was showing us there was a better way. Did you know that psychiatrists are the only medical specialists that virtually never look at the organ they treat? Think about it. Cardiologists look. Neurologists look. Orthopedic doctors look. Virtually every other medical specialties look. Psychiatrists guess. Before imaging, I always felt like I was throwing darts in the dark at my patients and had hurt some of them which horrified me. There is a reason that most psychiatric medications have ‘black box warnings.’ Give them to the wrong person and you can precipitate a disaster. Early on, our imaging work taught us many important lessons such as illnesses like ADHD, anxiety, depression and addictions are not single or simple disorders in the brain, they all have multiple types. For example, here are two patients who have been diagnosed with major depression that had virtually the same symptoms yet radically different brains. One had really low activity in the brain. The other one had really high activity. How would you ever know what to do for them unless you actually look? Treatment needs to be tailored to individual brains, not clusters of symptoms. Our imaging work also taught us that mild traumatic brain injury was a major cause of psychiatric illness that ruin people’s lives and virtually no one knew about it because they would see psychiatrists for things like temper problems, anxiety, depression and insomnia and they would never look so they would never know. Here’s a scan of a fifteen year old boy who fell down a flight of stairs at the age of three and even though he was unconscious for only a few minutes, there was nothing mild about the enduring effect that injury had on this boy’s life. When I met him at the age of fifteen, he had just been kicked out of his third residential treatment program for violence. He needed a brain rehabilitation program, not just more medication thrown at him in the dark or behavior therapy which if you think about it is really cruel to put him on a behavior therapy program when behavior is really an expression of the problem. It’s not the problem. Researchers have found that undiagnosed brain injuries are a major cause of homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, panic attacks, ADHD and suicide. We are in for a pending disaster with a hundreds of thousands of soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and virtually no one is looking at the function of their brain. As we continued our work with SPECT, the criticism grew louder but so did the lessons. Judges and defense attorneys sought our help to understand criminal behavior. To date, we have scanned over 500 convicted felons including 90 murderers. Our work taught us that people who do bad things often have troubled brains. That was not a surprise. But what did surprise us was that many of these brains could be rehabilitated. So here’s a radical idea. What if we evaluated and treated troubled brains rather than simply warehousing them in toxic, stressful environments? In my experience, we could save tremendous amounts of money by making these people more functional so when they left prison, they could work, support their families and pay taxes. Dostoevsky once said, ‘A society should be judged not by how well it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.’ Instead of just crime and punishment, we should be thinking about crime evaluation and treatment. So after 22 years and 83,000 scans, the single most important lesson my colleagues and I have learned is that you can literally change people’s brains and when you do you change their life. You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better and we can prove it. My colleagues and I performed the first and largest study on active and retired NFL players showing high levels of damage in these players at a time when the NFL said ‘they didn’t know if playing football caused long term brain damage.’ The fact was they didn’t want to know. That was not a surprise. I think if you get most thoughtful nine-year olds together and you talk about the brain is soft about the consistency of soft butter, it’s housed in a really hard skull that has many sharp bony ridges, you know, 28 out of 30 nine-year olds would go probably a bad idea for your life. But what really got us excited was the second part of the study where we put players on a brain smart program and demonstrated that 80% of them could improve in the areas of blood flow, memory and mood that you are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better on a brain smart program. How exciting is that? I am so excited. Reversing brain damage is a very exciting new frontier but the implications are really much wider. Here is the scan of a teenage girl who has ADHD, who was cutting herself, failing in school and fighting with her parents. When we improved her brain, she went from D’s and F’s to A’s and B’s and was much more emotionally stable. Here’s a scan of Nancy. Nancy had been diagnosed with dementia and her doctor told her husband that he should find a home for her because within a year she would not know his name. But on an intensive brain rehabilitation program, Nancy’s brain was better as was her memory and four years later Nancy still knows her husband’s name. Or my favorite story tells us straight this point is Andrew, a nine year old boy who attached a little girl on the baseball field for no particular reason and at that time was drawing pictures of himself hanging from a tree and shooting other children. Andrew was Columbine, Aurora and Sandy Hook waiting to happen. Most psychiatrists would have medicated Andrew as they did Eric Harris and the other mass shooters before they committed their awful crimes but SPECT imaging taught me that I had to look at his brain and not throw darts in the dark at him, to understand what he needed. His SPECT scan showed a cyst the size of a golf ball occupying the space of his left temporal lobe. No amount of medication or therapy would have helped Andrew. When the cyst was removed, his behavior completely went back to normal and he became the sweet loving boy he always wanted to be. Now eighteen years later, Andrew, who is my nephew, owns his own home. He’s employed and pays taxes because someone bothered to look at his brain. He has been a better son and will be a better husband, father and grandfather. When you have the privilege of changing someone’s brain, you not only change his or her life, you have the opportunity to change generations to come. I’m Dr. Daniel Amen. Thank you.

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Would You Feed A Million-Dollar Racehorse Junk Food?

Of course not!

Yet most parents continue to feed their kids massive amounts of junk food every day. It’s an epidemic that will have tragic consequences if we don’t do something about it soon.

How did so many parents get into this bad habit?

For many, they believed the lie that having their kids "eat something" was better than if they ate nothing.

WRONG!

In the same way feeding a million-dollar racehorse junk food won’t produce a faster race time, your kids can’t perform at their best unless they eat brain-healthy fuel.

Clearly we have a problem with junk food in our children’s diets. But hang in there, you are not alone and there is hope.

We’re here to help if you are a parent struggling to get your kids to ditch the chicken nuggets and mac n cheese.

You can listen to and download this mp3 for free: http://bit.ly/1DmxWK8

According to clinical neuroscientist, board-certified psychiatrist, New York Times bestselling author, brain-imaging expert and Amen Clinics founder Daniel G. Amen, MD: "Raising brain-healthy children starts with having their parents live a brain-healthy life and set a positive example in the home."

In this week’s video, Dr. Amen and his wife Tana Amen offer practical tips on how you can create a brain-healthy eating plan in your home.

Here are just a few of the helpful topics they cover:

As a parent, feel empowered to set boundaries about what type of food is in your house and what your kids can eat. You can control what gets eaten in your house!

If you feel like your children never talk to you, it may be because you aren’t listening. Learn to practice active listening to create a safe space for open communication.

If you feel like you are using effective parenting techniques but still have long battles with your kids, something else may be going on. It may be time to further investigate the root cause of the troubling behaviors.

Kids and adults alike must eat right to think right. Setting an example for your kids by eating brain-healthy foods is the first step. Establishing nutrition boundaries, practicing active listening, and celebrating the wins are all things you can start working on today.

Dr. Amen and Tana want to keep the conversation around raising brain-healthy children going so please leave us a comment. Share what’s working and what’s not working in your family.

Together, we can offer solutions and build a community of brain-healthy parents raising brain-healthy kids.

Amen Clinics has helped thousands of individuals and families live brain-healthy lives over the past 25 years. Through that vast experience, Dr. Amen and his colleagues have examined nearly 100,000 SPECT brain scans from men and women in 111 countries around the world.

If you feel that you or a loved one could benefit from an evaluation, contact the Amen Clinics Care Center today.

--- Begin Transcript ---

Dr. Amen: Hi, I’m Dr. Daniel Amen.

Tana: And I’m Tana Amen. Welcome to Change Your Brain, Change your Life.

Dr. Amen: You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better and we can prove it. Today we’re going to talk about raising brain healthy children. When kids have significant problems, when you really do effective parenting and they still have three-hour tantrums or they can’t do well in school, they may have ADD; they may had a brain injury. So at that point, bringing them to a place like ours can just be critical and life saving. We really want you to think about what you feed them, about the example that you give them – love their brains, protect their brains.

Tana: Now when we’re talking about these kids, nutrition becomes really important and we really work a lot with the kids we see on nutrition.

Dr. Amen: Well, I think you’re putting them on a milk-free, wheat-free diet. It did miraculous for some kids.

Tana: Well I have all that information in the book, Healing ADD through Food. We’ve got a whole lumination diet. It’s really interesting. I will, often, I speak to a lot of parenting groups and they will, the number one thing, I mean almost every mom in the room raises their hand, ‘but my kid won’t eat those foods, like they only eat, you know, chicken nuggets.’ And I have to tell I’m astounded.

Dr. Amen: Now you actually have a healthy form of chicken nuggets.

Tana: Right.

Dr. Amen: So this is where the ‘red hair’ comes down.

Tana: Yeah. This is where the authoritarian part of me and the red hair comes out and I’m like, ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ Like, ‘Who’s the parent in the house? Your kid will only eat chicken nuggets. Is that true? If your kid were starving and there was nothing left on the planet, chicken nuggets is all they’re going to eat.’ And somewhere along the line I feel like as mothers we’ve been programmed to think that if we do not get our children to eat four times a day, we’re going to do whatever we have to, come hell or high water, to make that kid eat four times a day even if we’re feeding them soda, nuggets, burgers, hotdogs, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to be bribing them. Ice cream, as long as we get them to eat four times a day, somehow, ‘Okay, now we’ve done our job.’ And you know that’s ridiculous because when you give your kids bad fuel, you don’t get a positive outcome like my husband often says, ‘Would you feed a million-dollar race horse junk food?’ Well, only if you were an idiot, right? So, when I hear parents say this, I hear this mom says this, “Well, I have to give them that because it’s all they’ll eat.” I usually just step back and go, “Okay, really?” Because the last time I checked, and this was very liberating for me to learn, last time I checked, it takes thirty days for a kid to starve to death. So, and I know that sounds harsh but it’s the reality. Okay. So in my house, I have …

Dr. Amen: So it’s not the end of the world if a child goes to bed without dinner.

Tana: Absolutely not. They’re going to get hungry. Okay. So, but that said, I do my part as a parent. I believe in doing my part as a parent. I’d know what my daughter’s …

Dr. Amen: So only buy healthy food for home.

Tana: My house is stocked with healthy food but I also know what her favorite foods are. Okay. So I have healthy alternatives for chicken nuggets. I have healthy alternatives for coconut shrimp. I have healthy alternatives for all of her favorite foods. Now, if she chooses not to eat that, c’est la vie.

Dr. Amen: Well, and I think one of Tana’s best gifts is taking really healthy food and making it taste amazing. So, one of my favorite stories, one of my grandsons, Elias, very picky eater and his mother, Breanne, was just freaked out. She couldn’t get him to eat so she’s constantly stressed out about that which of course made him more picky and Tana was making one of her recipes called Avocado Gelato and so Eli was over the house and I took just a little bit of it and put it on his lips and he got a big smile and then he had a big helping and he went home with Avocado Gelato and my daughter texted me a picture of him with chocolate all over and it was good for him.

Tana: Oh by the way, this is made of avocadoes, cacao, almond milk. I mean it’s like, it doesn’t get much better.

Dr. Amen: So there are alternatives. The second thing is bonding and bonding really is two things. It’s time – actual, physical time – and listening. Listening is often not natural and so what they teach therapists to do is something called ‘Active Listening.’ So you say something and I just don’t jump in. I listen to what you’re actually saying  and then repeat that back and so critical for you not, you know, if you’re one of those people that say, “Oh my children will never talk to me,” you might not be listening well enough and, you know, I have had so many parents give me their teenagers to treat and I go oh, they said they weren’t going to talk to you and I go, “I know it’s really hard,” and usually I can’t get the kids to shut up because I’m really good at listening. So active listening is just so important. Basically when they say something, rather than respond, rather than give them all of your wisdom, listen to what they’re saying and repeat it back and also listen for the feeling behind what they’re saying. Repeat that back as well. Then third – rules. I think rules are really important. Societies have rules. Businesses have rules. You should have rules at home. And we’ve posted them for a long time – Tell the truth, we treat each other with respect, do what mom and dad says the first time, put things away you take out. I mean simple things, not more than eight. I had one OCD patient, obsessive-compulsive disorder patient that actually posted a hundred and eight rules on her refrigerator. So, and then notice what you like more than what you don’t like. I think that’s just so critical.

Tana: And you have to have fun rewards and celebrations so it can’t just be all about parenting. It’s going to be, you know, ‘look when things go, are going really well let’s go celebrate, let’s do something fun.’

Dr. Amen: We’re going to do a lot more shows on parenting. Raising brain healthy children is just critical. It’s the next generation. It starts by you living a brain healthy life. So write us a comment on what are the things you do that you just feel really effective with your kids. What are the things you could do better? Send us a video. If you’re really struggling with your child, call our call center. See if, you know, bringing the child in for evaluation wouldn’t be in their best interests and ultimately in yours and your marriage’s best interest because  we know how hard that tough kids can be on relationships. Thanks for watching.

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End Homework Battles Forever! Raising Brain Healthy Children | Part 1

Are your kids setting the homework rules in your house?

If the answer is yes, welcome to a very large community of parents wrestling with the same challenge every night.  But don’t panic, it doesn’t have to be so bleak.  There is hope for getting your kids to listen.

Here’s how…

You can listen to and download this mp3 for free: http://bit.ly/1vU163A

It all starts with your brain.

That’s right. Your brain.  After all, your kids don’t do what you say, they do what you do.  And this is where your brain comes into the picture.  

Simply put, brain-healthy parents raise brain-healthy kids.

--- Begin Transcript ---

Dr. Amen: Hi, I’m Dr. Daniel Amen.

Tana: And I’m Tana Amen. Welcome to Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.

Dr. Amen: You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better, we can prove it. Today we’re going to talk about raising brain healthy children. What are the things parents can do to really optimize the brain development of their kids so that they can do better in school, have closer relationships, really set the stage for them to have a meaningful life.

Tana: Well, and I love this because a lot of the tips are so practical when it comes to getting your kids set up for success not just in your parenting skills as far as discipline or, you know, teaching them structure but also with getting them to eat healthy and think right and really getting their habits down. So it’s very important.

Dr. Amen: So, the first step in raising brain healthy children is you really have to define what kind of parents you want to be and what kind of child you want to raise. You have to tell your frontal lobes what’s this all about. They actually found that if parents eat dinner with their children, and we almost always eat together, and they read to them at night, that that were really the seeds of road scholars.

Tana: That was the only common denominator where those two things between all of the road scholars, they eat dinner together every night and their parents read to them. So I thought that that was so interesting. Now to speak to your point about deciding what kind of parents you want to be, Chloe is a very strong kid and I remember at about four years old, she was just about five, I broke down one day and started crying and went, ‘Parenting is not supposed to be this hard,’ because I was struggling with her strength. Now, I often say now that if I survived her strength it’s going to serve her well because I’ve learned how to …

Dr. Amen: So it’s either be ‘Leader of the free world’ or ‘Leader of the gang.’

Tana: Right. We’re trying to like figure out which one but she, I understand her better now but the big part of it was understanding me better. Deciding what kind of parent I want to be, what I figured out was that my intensity makes me want to be very authoritarian, like very like, ‘This is how it’s going to be,’ and I’m going to rule the house with an iron fist. I really started digging into this, like, what makes, you know, for good parenting what makes, what helps to raise responsible children as opposed to me being a good parent. What is my outcome? What I’m trying to achieve is not to be her friend. It’s not to be all of these other things or to be seen as this great parent. I want to make sure that I do my job and turn out a responsible, loving, successful person. That’s my job.

Dr. Amen: Independent.

Tana: Independent. And so when I got it into my head I started to step back and go, “Okay. So now let’s reverse engineer what’s that going to take.” I want her to think for herself. Me, being authoritarian means I’m thinking for her.

Dr. Amen: Right.

Tana: And so I had to figure that out and it was not easy. I still constantly have to catch myself and like, back up and go okay, let go.

Dr. Amen: That your job in many ways is to be a good coach, to be curious, not furious.

Tana: Right.

Dr. Amen: Tana actually, she already did that time. We’re going to talk about that in a minute. So time was never the issue. The issue was really around the battle.

Tana: Right and so here was the key for me and this changed everything. I let go. I mean I literally let go but what I mean by that is, I mean a lot of people who see it from the outside will go, “Whoa, she’s not like doing anything. She’s not parenting her.” And that’s not really true. What I did is I step back and I’ve decided that I was going to let Chloe pay consequences. She was going to make her own choices.

Dr. Amen: And you aren’t going to rescue her.

Tana: The key is I was not going to rescue her from the consequences. I would be very clear about what the consequences were going to be. I would teach her. I’d be a good coach. I’d listen and if she didn’t follow through or whatever choice she made, good or bad, those were her consequences to live with. And the hardest part as a parent, hardest part, is that we want to rescue our kids when they messed up. We don’t want them to suffer the pain that we went through as kids and I had to figure out and I did it and it was hell for her for the first couple of months because there was no yelling, there was no discipline, there was no grounding, there was nothing. It was her paying real life consequences.

Dr. Amen: So give them an example.

Tana: Homework battles are huge, right? So homework battles are just a problem I hear all the time from parents and I would literally sit down at the table, it would be this huge battle every night. I’m telling her you’re doing your homework and you’re not moving until it’s done and she’ll be screaming and it’s just this giant battle. Finally when she was in second grade, I walked in one day and I said, “Are you going to do your homework?” Right there she looked at me a little funny. She’s like, “What do you mean?” She was waiting for me to sit down and make her do her homework and I said, “Well, are you going to do your homework or not? If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it.” And she was very suspicious and she said, “Ah, what do you mean I don’t have to do it?” I said, “I’m never going to make you do your homework again.” And she looked at me very suspiciously at this point because that doesn’t make sense. I said, “No honey. I said. I’ve been thinking about it. We fight every night over doing your homework and I realized how silly I’m being by fighting with you over your homework because it’s not my homework. It’s your homework.”

Dr. Amen: Yeah you passed that grade.

Tana: “I already finished second grade. They’re not my grades, they’re your grades and here’s the thing, I did my homework and I did it well and I did well in school. I don’t like getting in trouble at school. I don’t like my teachers being upset with me. That was my choice. I get to reap the benefits from what I did but I’m not you and if you decide you don’t want to do your homework, I’m okay with that and I love you so much that if you don’t do any homework all year and you decide that you’d rather repeat second grade, I’m okay with that too. You’ll make new friends when your friends move on.” Oh my gosh! She was so mad she had steam coming out of her ears. She’s like, “That’s ridiculous. I’m going to do my homework. I’m just not going to do it right this second.” And she walked out the room. She came back ten minutes later, did her homework by herself. I’ve never ever asked her about homework again, sat with her to do homework. Now I will help her. All she has to do was ask but I don’t get on her case and asked her, “Did you do it?”

Dr. Amen: So know what kind of parent you want to be. Do you want to be a parent that solves all your children’s problems? In that way, basically making them incompetent to solve their own or do you want to raise healthy, independent, social creatures that can have a happy life.

Tana: And let me be clear. People will see me letting Chloe make mistakes and sometimes they’ll look at me like, “Why? Why are you letting her do that?” She’ll order bad food or she’ll do something and I give her a certain amount of freedom because I don’t want her listening to my voice when she goes off to college. That’s not going to help her. She needs to be listening to her voice and whatever consequences happen from that, you know, and there’s times where I’m, it’s like, cringing. She’s trying to order, you know, pasta again for the third night in a row and I’m like, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” because she know I’ve been teaching these kids since she was little. When she’s at home, she eats what’s at home and there aren’t, there is no junk food. When we’re out, she gets to order what she wants and it makes me cringed sometimes. But what I reinforces the benefits and consequences of what’s going to happen when she eats those foods and I leave it at that and I am the living example for her. That’s the key. I am the constant example.

Dr. Amen: And that’s where your biggest influence is going to be because if you are bonded to your children, they pick your values. If you’re not bonded, they pick the opposite value.

Tana: Your kids don’t do what you say. They do what you do.

Dr. Amen: Ultimately that’s true.

Tana: And so when, this happened just last week. It was just so beautiful. So I went in to go wake Chloe up and she was not in her bed and I’m like, “Where is she?” She was downstairs. She was already up, dressed, had set her alarm and she had her little running clothes on and I’m like, “What are you doing up so early?” She said, “You know, I decided that I’m going to go for a walk around our neighborhood every morning before school so I’m getting up extra early.” She said, “I made myself a healthy breakfast.” She said, “I just feel so much better when I do this,” like it was all her idea. It was such a huge shift. It was great.

Dr. Amen: We’re going to do a lot more shows on parenting. Raising brain healthy children is just critical. It’s the next generation. It starts by you living a brain healthy life and then really knowing what kind of parents you want to be, what kind of child you want to raise. So write us a comment on what are the things you do that you just feel really effective with your kids. What are the things you could do better? Send us a video. If you’re really struggling with your child, call our center. See if, you know, bringing a child in for evaluation wouldn’t be in their best interest and ultimately in yours and your marriage’s best interest because we know how hard that tough kids can be on relationships. Thanks for watching.

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How the Brain Helps or Ruins Your Love Life

If you have ever wondered about the following questions, this video is a must watch!

You can listen to and download this mp3 for free: http://bit.ly/1IV6Yzk

Your brain is the largest sex organ in your body! Surprisingly, the principle driver of love and sex is the brain.

Consider that your brain decides:

Typically, the woman’s brain is very active. Thinking, thinking, thinking…especially in the emotional part of the brain. The man’s brain, by comparison, is very quiet.

Man or woman, your brain helps you be enthusiastic in the bedroom or drains you of desire and passion. Your brain helps you process and learn from a break-up or makes you vulnerable to depression or obsession.

When the brain works right, it helps you be:

When the brain is dysfunctional, it causes you to be:

… thus ruining your chances of intimacy and love!

Thirsty for more? Here’s how I can help you change your brain and change your life:

For daily inspiration and easy brain healthy tips & tricks, follow me on Facebook.

For weekly training, subscribe to my YouTube show!

--- Begin Transcript ---

Dr. Amen: Hi, I’m Dr. Daniel Amen.

Tana: And I’m Tana Amen. Welcome to Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.

Dr. Amen: You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better and we can prove it. In this episode, we’re going to talk about the brain and relationships. So the first part of the brain that I just find so stinking and interesting is the prefrontal cortex. So it’s the front third of the brain, the largest thing humans and any other animals. 30% of the human brain, 11% of the Chimpanzee brain, 7% of your dog’s brain, 3% of your cat’s brain and 1% of the mouse’s brain. Focus, forethought, judgment, impulse control, organization, planning, empathy, learning from the mistakes that you make. So when it works right you have a good filter. Jerry Seinfeld once said, ‘The brain is a sneaky organ. We all get weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that no one should ever hear.’ So if you’re frontal lobes are low because you’re drinking too much or you had a brain injury, all of the sudden, those thoughts get out.

Tana: _________ don’t know that drinking drops the function frontal lobe which is why you make bad decisions.

Dr. Amen: And why there’s more fighting in couples when people have had a couple of drinks because …

Tana: because your filter is not working.

Dr. Amen: Right.

Tana: We all know if you’re married, any of you who are married, no, that you should definitely not say anything you’re thinking, now, unless you’re me.

Dr. Amen: A filter is a good idea.

Tana: Right.

Dr. Amen: But when it’s hurt, forethought is hurt.

Tana: Right.

Dr. Amen: And so you might go, “Oh, she’s cute.” So even though your goal is to stay married and have a loving, passionate, long-term relationship, all of the sudden, your behavior wanders and that can devastate your life.

Tana: Right.

Dr. Amen: I’ve seen that so often.

Tana: And then people look back and go, “I don’t even know why that happened.” They’re not even sure, they didn’t mean, that they’re not sure why it happened but it happened because they were giving in the moment.

Dr. Amen: So your behavior can be of, I have an exercise I do with couples we call the ‘One-Page Miracle.’ On one piece of paper, write down what you want in your relationship and it’s a frontal lobe exercise because with you, I want a kind, caring, loving and supportive relationship, right?

Tana: Right.

Dr. Amen: But you know, I don’t always feel that way.

Tana: At least you know I’m hearing the truth.

Dr. Amen: You know, let’s just say something nasty but when my frontal lobes work right, I’m like, “Don’t say that.”

Tana: Well I’m lucky he has five sisters and a wonderful mother so I always say he came housebroken and fully trained.

Dr. Amen: And I know if you say that stupid thing, they remember it forever.

Tana: Mind like a steel trap.

Dr. Amen: So pain is a really good teacher. Another system of the brain which is another really interesting one is called the anterior cingulate gyrus. I know it’s a long term but it’s basically the brain’s gear shifter. It allowed you to go from thought to thought, move from idea, being flexible, go with the flow.

Tana: So shifting back and forth.

Dr. Amen: And when serotonin levels are low and did you know birth control pills lower serotonin levels?

Tana: Yeah.

Dr. Amen: People become worried, rigid, inflexible when things don’t go their way.

Tana: Well, and that’s not the only thing that lower serotonin levels. So 80-90% of the serotonin in your body is made in your gut, not in your brains, that’s why the gut is often referred to as the ‘second brain.’ So, when you have …

Dr. Amen: And we’re going to develop a brain-directed pro-biotic coming next week.

Tana: So when you have trouble with your digestive system which is why we’re so focused on nutrition here and lifestyle tips and why we think we get some of our best testimonials from our nutrition department because we really focus on healing that gut.

Dr. Amen: So when serotonin levels go down, your cingulate starts working too hard – worried, rigid, inflexible, things don’t go your way, you get upset. You tend to be argumentative and oppositional, hold grudges and the cingulate is also really interesting and that’s where, it’s the part of your brain that notices errors. So people with low serotonin they tend to notice what’s wrong about their own bodies, they tend to notice what’s wrong about their kids or with their husband or the people at work.

Tana: So, let’s talk for one second because I know it’s coming and I’m just going to like, I’m just going to bring up the elephant in the room. So don’t look at me like that. So, PMS. So when we get close to their cycles, serotonin drops.

Dr. Amen: Serotonin drops, cingulate goes up.

Tana: So you already know this because, think about it with me for a second. What do women crave when they have PMS? – Chocolate, alcohol, pasta, right? They crave the things that are going to …

Dr. Amen: And sugar raises serotonin.

Tana: Right. So any type of simple carbohydrate like pasta, rice, potatoes, chocolate …

Dr. Amen: Bring in alcohol.

Tana:  alcohol increase serotonin so you naturally know that you want this, you need this. When you get to the stage in your cycle, it’s very helpful to know what’s happening. I think just by knowing what’s happening, it makes the big difference.

Dr. Amen: And what, what I’ve found in the PMS studies I’ve done because I’ve scanned a lot of women at the good time of their cycle and then at the vulnerable time of their cycle, their cingulate goes up – worried, rigid, inflexible, notice errors and their prefrontal cortex goes down, so now they don’t have good control over what they say, so all of those things sort of come out.

Tana: So if you want to understand what’s happening, it gives you that opportunity to go in advance. Okay? So if I have these thoughts, you know just take a second

Dr. Amen: How do you calm down the cingulate, you raise serotonin and you can do that with exercise. You can do it with serotonin mood support, which has 5-HTP and saffron in it. The spice saffron is awesome. Simple carbohydrates but healthier ones like garbanzo beans and sweet potatoes and your life is better. So let’s quickly talk about the other three systems. They are so important. One called the limbic system. It’s your emotional. It’s the bonding which I totally ________ and adore you. The limbic system is also involved with mood. It sets your emotional tone how happy or sad you are. It’s involved in bonding, larger in women than in men, which is why women are primary caretakers for children and the elderly. When the limbic system works too hard, people tend to be sad, they tend to be negative, they focus on what’s wrong rather than what’s right and exercise helps that too. Fish oil helps that but not fish oil that’s high in DHA; it’s got to be higher in EPA. It’s a very important point. Another area of the brain that can really affect relationships is called the basil ganglia – deep, large structures in the brain. When they work too hard people tend to be anxious, tensed, nervous, predict the worse and in order to have a wonderful love life, you have to feel a little bit relaxed. Unfortunately, sometimes they’ll use alcohol to relax them but then it drops their frontal lobes and they’ll say something that hurts their partner’s feelings and then there’s no love. One of my good friends, ______ Hanson, says, ‘No forethought equals no foreplay.’ And then the last area of the brain to talk about quickly in Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, there’s a whole section on this in my book, the Brain in Love, is the temporal lobe. So the temporal lobes are underneath your temples behind your large structures. They are involved with language, learning, memory, mood stability and temper control and when one of them is hurt, sometimes people can be really irritable, they can take things the wrong way, they’re almost a little bit paranoid, they think people are talking about them even though they’re not. Getting those healthy can be so important and if you have a flash temper, getting a scan can be really helpful. We see it, understand it, target treatment for …

Tana: We’re talking all about these brain systems and what they’re responsible for but there’s a really cool connection about the food-mood connection and I love this because it’s a big part of what we do here is teach people how to really connect their brain, body and those functions and do a lot of it naturally. So you’re talking about serotonin and we also, you know, there’s dopamine also for people who lack focus and maybe need help with their frontal lobes, their forethought and impulse control. So things that help elevate serotonin naturally and in a healthy way so women with PMS or someone who just is sad, worried, rigid, inflexible. So, things like sweet potatoes are great. A little bit of quinoa pasta or an apple with some almond butter on it would be fabulous. You know I’ve got recipes for apple cobbler during that time we were mentors, it’s amazing. So we want you not focusing on the simple carbs that are going to, you know, make you, you know, overweight, feeble-minded and affect your brain, we want you to focus on the carbs that are going to really boost serotonin, make you happy and also make you healthy at the same time. Now dopamine is the opposite, so you want something that’s going to increase your drive, your motivation and your focus.

Dr. Amen: Steak.

Tana: We want protein, so things like eggs and lean, high-quality protein so grass-feed meats or free range chickens, and you know wild salmon, things like that. That’s going to really increase focus and you want to focus on having protein about every three to four hours during the day, small amounts.

Dr. Amen: Because that stabilizes your blood sugar. So researchers measured 107 couples’ blood sugar levels right before bed and then they gave them voodoo dolls, and they said, “We want you to express your feelings about your partner with pins in the dolls,” and people who had the lowest blood sugar, had more than double the number of pins in the dolls.

Tana: Yeah, interesting.

Dr. Amen: And it so fits this one because if she doesn’t eat, if I don’t feed her on a regular basis, oh my god, I’m like, pull over, like put it in you know, put nuts in the car, protein bars

Tana: I know I’m like a squirrel. I carry food everywhere. I’m like a squirrel.

Dr. Amen: Isn’t that interesting though, when your brain’s not right, your relationships aren’t right.

Tana: Absolutely.

Dr. Amen: And I love this one more than anyone in the world.

Tana: I have to finish this last point.

Dr. Amen: Excuse me. I’m on TV. I’m telling you, I’m pouring my heart out to you.

Tana: I adore you.

Dr. Amen: My brain out to you. It’s not really your heart. I don’t love her with all my heart. I love her with all my brain. She’s not going to break my heart. She’s going to break my brain. But if my brain’s not right I won’t act in a way that’s consistent to get me what I want which is kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship for the rest of my life. I’ve seen too many people they love their partners and because they’re brains are not right, they make bad decisions and they devastate their relationship and they regret that moment for the rest of their lives. Take care of your brain.

Tana: Okay, now can I finish my point? No. I just want to finish the point about the protein. What you don’t want to do is have large amounts of protein at one time. You don’t want to …

Dr. Amen: I just poured out my soul to you and I were like, ‘large amount of protein.’

Tana: So it’s what happens when you interrupt me before I’m done. It’s what married couples do right? No. I want to make sure I finish this point because it’s really important. You want to be thinking of protein like medicines – small amounts throughout the day. You don’t want to go eat a large portion of protein for breakfast and then not eat anything until dinner and that goes to what you were saying. So think of it like medicine – two to three ounces every three to four hours.

Dr. Amen: If this has been interesting to you, write a comment below. Send us a video on how your brain has impacted your relationships and what you can do going forward. You also can go to our Mindworks store and get the Brain in Love or the Brain on Joy bars. Totally it just be an awesome gift for you and if you’re struggling in your relationships but you’re in love and you want to make it work, make an appointment at one of our clinics. I’m Dr. Daniel Amen.

Tana: I’m Tana Amen. Thank you.

--- End Transcript ---

Keeping it together when someone close to you has ADD

You can listen to and download this mp3 for free: http://bit.ly/1ApUwTC

Attention Deficit Disorder can cause debilitating unhappiness and pain in relationships and families.

Men and women who truly desire a close relationship often find their day-to-day behaviors interfere with the very intimacy they seek.

Hang on, there’s hope!

I want to use my 35 years of clinical and personal experience as a psychiatrist to help you understand ADD by explaining the following in this video:

·      Symptoms of ADD in relationships 

·      ADD-caused barriers to intimacy 

·      Healing relationships distressed by ADD 

·      Sexuality and ADD 

·      Tips on communication

 Please take a look.  It has the potential to change millions of lives, save marriages and create happier, healthier lives for couples and families. WATCH and find out how to keep your family together in a healthy way that focuses on growth while reducing the turmoil.

--- Begin Transcript ---

Dr. Amen: Hi, I’m Dr. Daniel Amen.

Tana: And I’m Tana Amen. Welcome to Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.

Dr. Amen: You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. We can prove it. Today, we’re going to talk about one of the most interesting subjects in my life – ADD and intimacy. So what does having ADD do to relationships? And, you know, I often say I know more about it than I want to. People who’ve read my book, Healing ADD or ADD in Intimacy, know that my beautiful wife has ADD …

Tana: Which I did not believe.

Dr. Amen: as to three of my four children so I know a lot about this. We’ve got a lot about this at Amen Clinics. So we’ve seen well over 50,000 patients over the last 25 years, half of them have had ADD. And so any issue you can imagine, we’ve dealt with it but intimacy is actually one of the most important and if you just think about it the hallmark symptoms of ADD – short attention span – so you can see how that’s going to affect a relationship in a negative way, distractibility, disorganization – often. I often say Tana never met a cabinet door she actually wanted to close but since people who have ADD are really smart, she taught our dog, Osmond, to close them after her. It’s hysterical. Short attention span, distractibility, disorganization, procrastination and impulse control – so saying or doing things that you might not think all the way through.

Tana: But you don’t have to have all of those and or you may not have them all equally.

Dr. Amen: Right. Not everybody does.

Tana: Because there’s different types of ADD.

Dr. Amen: So disorganization, you bet.

Tana: Right.

Dr. Amen: She’s not late.

Tana: I’m never late.

Dr. Amen: A lot of people with ADD tend to be late because they’re not organized very well for time.

Tana: Well for example, I don’t procrastinate because I have anxiety, so …

Dr. Amen: Right. So she has one of the subtypes. In my work, I talked about seven types of ADD and one of them is anxious ADD, but excitement-seeking. She works as a neurosurgical ICU nurse. When it is left untreated, it is often that irritation between couples that people don’t really understand, and it can devastate relationships. People who have ADD get divorced more. They have more fears. They have more issues with money and they have more sexual issues because you know when I lecture I often say, “So what is that require? What is an orgasm require?” Focus. You have to pay attention to the feeling long enough in order to make it happen. So there’re lots of sexual issues between couples that if you could just get the ADD treated it’d be helpful, so much more helpful.

Tana: And in addition to that, you’re talking about people with ADD who are excitement-seeking, so let’s be very clear. I’m excitement-seeking in a different way. So, you know, I practice martial arts I’m like, you know, working and training on it but when you’re talking about intimacy and relationships, so if people are because you talk about, you treat a lot of sex addicts so if they’re excitement-seeking and this is showing up in their relationships, it’s not all about just being able to focus on having an orgasm. Sometimes, this excitement-seeking behavior can show up in the bedroom and it doesn’t work for the other person.

Dr. Amen: Right. In fact, sexuality really, successful sexuality is a match between two brains. So unfortunately, what things do happen is the low frontal lobe person who is excitement-seeking tends to gravitate toward the overfocused person who’s not excitement-seeking at all. They like ritual. They like it the same way because that’s comforting to them and that can cause some real sexual friction not in a good way.

Tana: Right. So, you know one thing I think we should point out is this isn’t to show about judgment. I mean this isn’t about what’s right and what’s wrong, it’s not a good thing, it’s not a bad thing – it’s a thing. So we’re just here to help maybe sort out why sometimes there’s friction and, you know, it’s really about finding that match or understanding if you’re already matched, how to make things better.

Dr. Amen: Well, and one of the things we learned early on because you know, I’m not a perfect match. I mean I adore you, is it’s really it’s not about ‘Oh, she’s right or wrong for me.’ It’s about alchemy which is ‘Can we create together what is awesome and amazing.’

Tana: Right. And the bigger question is ‘Do you want it to work?’

Dr. Amen: And are you willing to work for it because there’s just no question. Being married can be one of the hardest things you ever do but if you do it right it’s one of the most satisfying.

Tana: Absolutely. Let’s talk about some practical tips really quickly that help with intimacy. So I have to say, I mean I’m actually very blessed and very fortunate because I have a partner who is very understanding about this topic. First of all, I didn’t even believe I had ADD. I didn’t believe in ADD when I met him.

Dr. Amen: Like it’s a religion.

Tana: Right. For me it was an excuse for people to not do well in life for failure or whatever but as I got to know him, I’m like, ‘Hey, wait a second. That explains my whole life growing up, right?’ So I started to understand some of the chaos in my family, in my life growing up and it made sense to me but one of the things that I really gravitated toward you just like we reiterated a minute ago, I often referred to Daniel as my rock because he’s solid, he’s grounding, he’s got that very soothing kind of personality. I’m intense. I mean I’m an intense person just all the way around. You know, that’s just my nature. So I like that about him. I also have to realize in choosing someone like that he’s going to be different from me. So you have to be a little, you have to come into this with a little bit of maturity. I think knowing that it’s like all I want is the stability. That means you know am I going to get him to go hike Machu Picchu or go skydiving with me. You know it’s not going to happen. Okay. So that would be unreasonable for me to assume because I picked him because of his ability to be grounding and calming and soothing. So there are times when I’m like, “Ah, I want to go do something you know really exciting,” but I know that that’s not going to be what I do with him and you need to …

Dr. Amen: So in the same way, because she’s not organized it doesn’t bother me. I just help set up systems so that the cabinet doors get closed, the wrappers get thrown away. I’m not harping because when you harp there’s no, nothing good that comes from that. I just understand we both have strengths, she has many and, you know, focus on the strengths and just have work around for the things that are challenges.

Tana: And in fact that’s a really good point and I love this because my martial arts master actually taught me this, ‘Fighters fight and writers write.’ And when I learned that concept, I’ll explain what that means, it was very liberating. So we really do appreciate each other’s strengths and we try to minimize, you know, what bothers us in the weaknesses. Of course we get irritated with each other. I mean it’s just not possible for married couple to not. It’s how you handle that irritation I think that’s more important. But when I realized like I used to try to feel like I had to try and do everything and do it right because I’m a recovering perfectionist. So when I figured it out that that’s not how life works best so I figured out what my strengths are. You know I’m really good at writing. I’m really good at teaching. I’m really good at teaching people how to live a healthy lifestyle. I’m not going to be closing cabinet doors because I don’t really care. So you know I can’t get down …

Dr. Amen: Well you actually don’t see them often.

Tana: I do not care. It’s just that there’s so much to do them you know so when I figured that out it’s like, ‘Oh, okay. Set my life up so that I can really get a lot done in the areas on the things that I’m really good at and at the top of that list is really taking care of my family. So I want to take care of my family. I want to do all these things. If I’m not going to do these other things let me get help over here and that’s why I have a partner who’s really understanding. When I go to him and say, “Look, I want to focus on writing books, on teaching people in our clinics, on spending quality time with you and my daughter but I don’t, I just can’t do it all and I’m not good at these things. Can you help me out?”

Dr. Amen: Right. So it’s the communication part. Communication is just absolutely critical so don’t hold in otherwise it’ll come out and it’ll explode and then look for solutions. I always say where you bring your attention determines how you feel, and so if I brought my attention to all the things that she did that I didn’t like then I’m going to be anxious and irritable and unhappy. But you know I like the verse from John 8:32 – ‘Know the truth and the truth will set you free.’ And the truth is there are so many amazing things about you that the other things we just figure out, work around. Now, in my practice where I consult with couples often, they both sort of get into their own corners and they have their huge buckets of smelly fish, you know, hurts from the past, and they take them out and throw them at each other repeatedly and you have to stop that because that’s not going to be helpful. The most helpful exercise I do with my patients is ‘Let’s talk about why you fell in love.’ So let’s go back and what are the things about that person that you just adored, you felt like you couldn’t live without because if you focus on the good things, you feel good. If you focus on the bad things, you feel bad and you’re infectious. But it’s important, you know, if we talk about physical intimacy, you know, I think one of the things we do is what do you need? Because we’re really good about talking about it so I’m not macho like ‘you should just accept whatever I do.’ There are lots of guys like that. Their egos are really fragile and they’re not good at paying attention, you know, tell me what turns you on, tell me what you like, what’s the right atmosphere and because many women who have ADD are easily distracted, the atmosphere, the environment is really important. If you have a child banging on the door, you know, it’s probably not going to be a great time.

Tana: Right. I actually really like what you’re saying there because I think it’s critical. I think a lot of couples are actually getting into this place of ‘Well, I don’t want to say anything because I don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings,’ and over time you end up really hurting the other person’s feelings because you hold resentment and if you think that resentment doesn’t leak, you’re wrong. So you know, you are in love with this person, you’ve been intimate with this person for a long time they’re reading your cues. And if you’re really unhappy and resentful, it leaks. So …

Dr. Amen: Well and then you’re more likely to say no more often which is going to hurt his or her feelings. So I think you want to be masterful students of each other – this works, this doesn’t work.

Tana: And one of the things that I think is helpful …

Dr. Amen: And what, where in that cycle because that’s really important because, you know, things are easier at certain times and harder at other times, it’s just you know I love this; I came up with it, so on; I was happy about that. Be curious, not furious. Be the student. Be the scientist, not just the subject of the situations. So if something doesn’t work, it’s like ‘What happened?’

Tana: Right. So what I want to say about this is be, instead of maybe approaching the person saying, “You know, I’d like you to listen to what I have to say.” You know, and trying to talk about it like that. I think a good way to approach is we’ve actually talk about it in advance. And I mean you’re very psychologically-minded and very open and I like that but you just said, ‘Look, I don’t know. I can’t read your mind. I don’t know what you want. I just need you to be always willing to talk to me and I’m always going to ask you,’ and so and vice versa. So if you go into it ahead of time knowing, ‘Look I’m going to set my ego so this has nothing to do with me, this has to do with pleasing the other person. Tell them that you need them to tell you. Tell them that you’re going to ask and don’t make it about you.

Dr. Amen: So faking it is actually ‘short term deal with the issue’ but it’s causing a long term problem because you’re not teaching the other person what you need. If this has been helpful to you, write a comment below. We’re really be grateful or send us a little video. If you’re really struggling with ADD in your relationships, come to one of our clinics. I mean it’s, we probably do that better than anything else. We’re so grateful for your attention, of course, we’re talking about ADD. So if you stayed with us this long, we’re even more grateful. Thank you so much.

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Concussions & Football: 1 Team Wins, All Players Lose

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The "big game" is this weekend. The NFL’s present-day gladiators will lock helmets and the crowds will cheer. However, after the game is over… the players will be the one’s to pay the price.   From 2009-2012, the Amen Cliics performed the world’s largest brain imaging and rehabilitation study on active and retired professional football players because we had a high suspicion that many players suffered with the effects of chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI). The results of our NFL study were very clear: A very high percentage of our players had evidence of TBI patterns on their SPECT scans and showed symptoms of it – there was a high rate of depression, dementia, obesity, and ADD-like symptoms among them.

  This shows that even those who have brain injury can still have hope – as there is a very high potential for recovery on a brain-smart program!   Nobody knows exactly how many blows to the head it takes to cause problems, yet studies have shown that it takes longer for children to recover from a second concussion if it follows soon after a first, and that once someone has a concussion they’re more likely to experience more. Many brain injuries go untreated because the person did not lose consciousness, so keep an eye out for these symptoms and seek medical attention right away if you suspect trauma:

At the Amen Clinics, we want to help you and your children heal brain injuries before they affect your life. Click on this link to learn more about how we approach traumatic brain injury, call us today at 1-888-564-2700, or tell us more about your situation.

The Steps to Becoming a Brain Warrior and Protecting the Most Important Part of You!

My wife Tana Amen and I want you to know that you are not stuck with the brain you have. With a little work, we know you can make it better and we have the story to prove it. This is the story of how my passion for brain health made me the warrior I am today, while helping thousands in the process. It all began with a simple idea: How do you know unless you look?

Have you ever wondered what compelled me to become a clinical neuroscientist, double board certified psychiatrist, brain imaging expert, multiple New York Times bestselling author and founder of the Amen Clinics? In this video, Tana Amen and I share my personal journey. You’ll learn about brain SPECT imaging, the revolutionary diagnostic tool my colleagues at the Amen Clinics and myself have used to amass the largest brain scan database in the world with nearly 100,000 scans from patients from 111 countries!

You’ll also understand how the ability to see the brain’s physiology helped me help my patients to better health and healing. Most importantly, you’ll find hope.

My story will show you that you can change your brain and you can change your life.

Listen to and download the mp3 for free: http://bit.ly/1C4yiG4

Early Days

I grew up with six siblings – an older brother and sister, and four younger sisters. My father called me a “maverick,” which, was not intended to be a compliment! While in the military, I became an x-ray technician where my love of imaging and photography began.

I recall my professors repeatedly stressing one important idea: How do you know unless you look?

Later, in medical school at Oral Roberts University, after a dear friend attempted suicide, I recall taking her to the department of psychiatry where I met her psychiatrist – a kind, compassionate and caring man named Dr. Stan Wallace. During that visit, it occurred to me that if Dr. Wallace could help my friend, it wouldn’t just help her, it would also help her husband, her children and, someday, her grandchildren as she became happier and more stable. I realized that psychiatry had the power to affect generations to come. And with that, my desire to become a psychiatrist was born.

The Use of SPECT

I first learned about SPECT imaging in 1991 at a lecture given by nuclear medicine physician Dr. Jack Paldi. SPECT combined my two loves – imaging and psychiatry. While MRIs and CT scans show anatomy, the SPECT scan shows physiology and how the brain functions.

In 1992, at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting, there were researchers that told others and myself that SPECT imaging should be for research only, and had no place in clinical practice. Already a double-board certified psychiatrist for nearly 10 years and having had a year of solid experience using SPECT imaging to help my patients, I strongly disagreed. The maverick in me prevailed and I continue to use SPECT to this day with life-changing outcomes for my patients.

  Looking, Not Guessing

For years, psychiatrists have been making diagnoses by talking to people without the benefit of any biological information. I compare Dr. Anson Henry’s 1840 depression diagnoses of Abraham Lincoln to the same methods used today – talking and looking for symptom clusters. This prompted me to pose an important question: How is it that psychiatry is the only medical specialty that does not look at the organ it aims to treat?

There is too much guesswork in psychiatry that ultimately ends up hurting people. Before I used imaging, I admit that I guessed too. While my diagnoses and prescriptions worked well for some, for other patients, it worsened their condition.  SPECT scans give me more information, which allows me to be more effective in helping my patients.

Important Lessons from SPECT

I began to understand the nature of the diseases I treated in a new way with the added information I received from the SPECT scans. Here are two of the many lessons I have learned from SPECT: 

We discovered that ADHD, anxiety, depression and addiction are not single or simple disorders. In fact they have multiple types, all requiring different treatments. 

We discovered a correlation with traumatic brain injury and psychiatric illness that was also reflected in statistics and research.

Brain Rehabilitation and Society

Judges and defense attorneys have sought our help in order to understand criminal behavior for many years. After scanning more than 500 criminal brains, we at the Amen Clinics learned that people who do bad things often have troubled brains, but perhaps more importantly, that these brains could be rehabilitated.

What if we evaluated and treated people with troubled brains, rather than simply warehousing them in toxic, stressful environments? I pose the idea that rehabilitating damaged criminal brains might be a way to reduce recidivism and help society in the long run.  

Football and Concussions

In 2007, the Amen Clinics conducted the first and largest study on active and retired National Football League players.  SPECT scans on 100 players showed widespread damage in their brains. In general terms, their brains showed a massive reduction of blood flow. The great news is that 80% of players showed a high level of improvement after treatment with the Amen Clinics brain rehabilitation plan.  

Reversing brain damage is an exciting new frontier. But the implications are even wider than just brain injury.

Consider Andrew’s Story…

He was a 9-year-old boy who attacked a girl on a baseball field for no good reason. His mother discovered two drawings in his room—one of himself hanging from a tree and the other, of him shooting other children. Andrew was Columbine, Aurora and Sandy Hook waiting to happen.

When I scanned Andrew’s brain, I observed my first case of a missing left temporal lobe, and a cyst the size of a golf ball. While most other psychiatrists would have put Andrew on medication or in psychotherapy, I convinced a UCLA doctor to drain the cyst. After the surgery, Andrew’s behavior returned to normal. Today, twenty years later, Andrew is doing great! He works, owns a home and is a terrific young man. (He also just so happens to be my nephew.)

The most important lesson I have learned from helping close to 100,000 people is; when you have the privilege to change someone’s brain, you not only change their life, you actually have the opportunity to change generations to come.

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Introducing My Wife – The Brain Health Warrior

I am thrilled to introduce you to my beautiful wife, Tana. When you hear her incredible story, I know that you will LOVE her.  Without giving too much away, her doctors told her that she had been dealt a bad genetic hand and had to accept taking multiple medications. As a health warrior, she insisted that there had to be a better way! One of her doctors actually told her that she was in denial and should see a psychiatrist. She wants me to tell you "that is NOT how we met.” Get to know Tana by clicking the play button below.

You can listen to and download this mp3 for free!

What an inspiration! Being sick motivated her to get well.  Together with her nursing experience and training in health and nutrition, she has spent over the last 10 years healing herself and helping patients at the Amen Clinics. She was raised in a culture of illness, but now she is determined to leave a legacy of health.  Her mission is to help YOU realize that your history is NOT your destiny.   Tana wants to teach you how to eat like THE OMNIVORE YOU ARE! Will you join us? Tune in each week on YouTube for our Change Your Brain Change Your Life show and start learning to reverse illness and feel amazing.

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SECRETS to Keeping Energized, Engaged, and Productive

I know that lots of people have been sending you motivational notes this week. I would  rather give you effective resources.    I know you care about your health and the health of your family, so you MUST make your brain and body urgent priorities. There are SO many things that you can do to make your life better today… starting NOW! This is the year you will reclaim the health of your brain and body. My wife, Tana and I are going to help. We will personally show you what you can do naturally and medically to change your brain, your body, and your life for the better. It's important that you stay subscribed to my emails because I'm going to send you lots of high-value, actionable tips in coming weeks. For now, here's our first training video from our new YouTube Show, Change Your Brain Change Your Life to get you started.

You can listen to and download this mp3 for free!

If you subscribe to our YouTube Show or Podcast and tune in each week, I PROMISE that it will completely shift your daily habits and be equipped make better decisions for your health and those that you care for. We will talk about preventing Alzheimer’s, Healing ADD, nutrition, fitness, and so much more! Nothing for sale here, just great content for you. Hope you like it. Please post a comment to let me know what you think. For COMPLETE life transformation and to reach your full potential, join us each week on YouTube at Change Your Brain Change Your Life YouTube Show. Use this week to reclaim your life agenda my friend. Let's get brain and body healthy together in 2015.

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Everyone Had a Happy Holiday... Why Didn't I?

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For some people, the holidays are NOT the most wonderful time of year. In fact, they can often be some of the most difficult times.

If you have found yourself thinking, “everyone had a happy holiday… why didn’t I?”… You are NOT ALONE! 

According to the National Institutes of Health, 75 million people will suffer from an anxiety or depressive illness during some point in their lives.

What Causes Homelessness, Drug and Alcohol Abuse, ADHD & Suicide?

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This was a such an incredible opportunity. I presented at TedX Orange County about the most important lesson that I have learned after 83,000 brain SPECT scans, and about my weird career.

I was SO passionate about doing this talk. TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world! Like TEDx, we believe in challenging the status quo, in doing psychiatry differently, because traditional approaches to brain health and performance improvement are inadequate I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you continue changing your brain and your life for the better, and become an agent to change yourself and those you love.

With hope,

Daniel

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14 Warning Signs Your Brain Is In Trouble and What You Can Do to Eliminate Them

Your brain will tell you it is in trouble, if you are listening. Based on strong scientific evidence, here are the 14 warning signs your brain is in trouble:

Mark your calendar, because Change Your Brain, Change Your Life is coming to YouTube TV every week to help you better your brain, increase your mood, focus and memory and help you become a brain warrior!

Download and listen to the mp3 for FREE: http://bit.ly/1zoG6jb

It’s a commercial free specialty channel you can watch here.

Each week, we are going to give you quick tips and really easy tools to help you have a better brain and a better life.

This is the first of its kind. It’s not even online yet… but stay tuned!

Here’s a preview of upcoming episodes that’s going to knock your socks off:

Tune in every week for uplifting and refreshing advice on how you can have happier days, along with a healthier life—with little to no drugs.

We will switch on the light bulb for you. You’ll understand when your brain may be in trouble and what you can do about it. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get reminders when our videos are posted.

Let’s get better, together!

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Don’t Believe Every Stupid Thought You Have!

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In Many Instances, Even Cynics Can Age Their Brain Faster… Giving Themselves Long-Term Brain Damage

You tell your friend something exciting, and she says, “Well, don’t count on it.” 

Ba, humbug!

Your spouse has to work late again.

Skeptical?

Cynicism is a deep mistrust of others. Some psychologists consider it a kind of chronic anger that develops over time.

For all you cynics out there, how does it make you feel emotionally? Do you feel drained? Do you feel weak? What does that tell you?

Now imagine doing that to your brain (beating it up) day in and day out with such negative thinking patterns.

Research shows cynical people also tend to smoke more, exercise less and weigh more. They also have a harder time following even the best medical advice, because their cynical natures won't let them believe what people tell them.

Past studies have also found that people who are cynical have a higher rate of cancer-related deaths, heart disease and overall cardiovascular problems.

Cardio problems can contribute to dementia because it essentially damages small blood vessels everywhere in your body, including in your brain.

Cynical people also tend to have greater stress responses, which means they typically have a higher heart rate, a higher blood pressure peak, and a tendency to have greater inflammation of their immune systems.

Your thoughts make you who you are today. What kind of a person are you today?

Watch this 5-minute video

This is the perfect video to put in your “favorites” or bookmark to watch every now and then as a wakeup call for those times when you fall asleep.

Send it to a family member or friend, because sharing really is caring.

How ADD Brought The Brain Doctor To His Knees

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­­­­­The Amen Clinic’s founder Daniel G. Amen M.D. relives his personal struggles with ADD in his family.  His son’s homework would take an hour to do a half an hour’s worth of homework with his mother yelling at him.  Holding his youngest daughter was like holding a flopping fish.  An embarrassed Dr. Amen did not go to church for a whole year because his youngest daughter was the worst behaved child in the church.  Have you ever seen a child on a leash?  Dr. Amen tied his youngest daughters shoe laces together in her stroller so she could not get out of her stroller and avoid using a leash.  He put a net over her crib to keep her from pulling herself out and getting a head injury because she was so active.  Dr. Amen’s eldest daughter had undiagnosed ADD and originally he thought she was not very smart.  His eldest daughter used to hate school because she could not do it and would pray that the teacher would not call on her because she always felt lost.  She never got an A in her life until she was diagnosed with ADD and with medicine she was able to get straight A’s and got accepted into a great veterinarian school. 

4 ways ADD devastates your life if left untreated:

The good news is with treatment people with ADD can thrive and get more access to their own brain.

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