“How Successful People Train Their Brain For Optimal Performance” from Jay Shetty Podcast
“How Successful People Train Their Brain For Optimal Performance”
Source: Jay Shetty Podcast | Dr. Daniel + Tana Amen (Listen 36 min)
Contributor: Selena Garcia
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“Mental hygiene is just as important as washing your hands.” - Dr. Daniel Amen
Dr. Amen and Tana Amen can come across as a little gimmicky at times, but only because they are so passionate about what they do. I give them the benefit of the doubt when things sound rehearsed; it's what they talk about on the reg. Regardless, there’s some good info here.
“Dr. Amen studies the brain, Tana Amen studies the body and soul. Together, the Amen’s promote brain health as the key to addressing mental challenges like depression.”
“Dr. Amen is an accomplished psychologist and author of over 40 books, including his most recent The End of Mental Illness. Tana is also a best-selling author of the Omni Diet, nurse, and health and wellness specialist. In this episode, the Amen’s provide easy to start steps in caring for your brain and promoting a happier, healthier you.”
Interestingly they talk about Tana's father being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease only to learn after Dr. Amen did some brain imaging that Tana's father didn't have Alzheimer's disease. He had something called pseudodementia, which is severe depression that masquerades as Alzheimer's disease. Over the next six months, he went from being a recluse to giving all-day seminars. Interesting for us ordinary folk to look into, if nothing else.
While Dr. Amen talks a lot about the brain, Tana shares pieces of her own personal story, which she notes as "very chaotic, lots of trauma, lots of addiction, lots of mental illness or what we call mental challenges.” And, as a result, out of her own survival, she learned to “build walls, isolate, pull away from people, and disconnect."
If you relate to any of this, or know someone who can, give it a listen and pay it forward. There are ads in this podcast, but they're not too painful.
Wishing you "healthy brain hygiene" in the New Year and all the years to come!
“What I couldn't know then that I know now is that that pain, all of that shame, all of everything I felt back then, there's no way I could know that that would be the thing going forward that would become my purpose in my life. So please just hang on, get help, reach out.” - Tana Amen
(11:10) Dr. Amen: “‘Mental hygiene is just as important as washing your hands.’ So, where we all start, the end of mental illness will begin with the revolution in brain health. That we see this organ—I’m in a new docuseries with Justin Bieber called “Seasons,” and I’ve been his Dr. for a long time, and I love Justin, but like many celebrities, sometimes he’d do what I say and often he wouldn’t. But he came into my office and said, ‘my brain is an organ just like my heart is an organ. If you told me I had heart problems, I’d do everything you said.’ And that’s how we need to start the revolution is love, honor, take care of the brain, and it’s super simple it’s three strategies: brain envy—you gotta care about it, avoid things that hurt your brain—know the list and do things that help, and the little tiny habit, I talk about many tiny habits in The End of Mental Illness, but the one that’s the most important as you go through your day, ask yourself whatever you’re doing ‘is this decision good for my brain or bad for it?... Ultimately your brain creates your mental health.”
(16:03) Tana: “My heart goes out to people who are struggling with this right now because there was a point in my life where I wanted to be dead. I, fortunately, didn’t have it within me to take my own life, but I kept praying that a truck would hit me or something would happen so it wasn’t my fault, ‘cause I was wasting oxygen on the planet. When I met my husband and I started learning about our work and looking at mental health through that lens of the four circles, ‘cause I had cancer, I had all these things that happened in my life besides the trauma growing up that just devastated me, and it all crashed in at one time. When I really understood those four circles—the biology, the psychology, the social circle, the spiritual circle, and I realized how bankrupt I had become in all of them. It’s like four tires on a car…If I could tell people one thing if you’re struggling with this right now, I wanted to be dead. It’s the worst time in my life; it was a pain like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I wanted to rip my skin off, only I couldn’t. I couldn’t get away from the pain... It’s something you can’t escape. But what I couldn’t know then that I know now is that that pain, all of that pain, all of that shame, all of everything I felt back then, there’s no way I could know that that would be the thing going forward that would become my purpose in my life. So please just hang on, get help, reach out.”
LISTEN TO THE FULL PODCAST (36 min)
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