transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Being prepared is an antidote for anxiety. Being over prepared creates a lot of stress and wasted time. With anxiety, you're predicting the worst, and then you're making it worse.

Speaker 2:
[00:14] In this episode, Dr. Amen and Tana discuss the various ways anxiety can reveal itself and how to overcome it.

Speaker 3:
[00:20] People underestimate the power of nutrition, and if you are eating an inflammatory diet, it's not gonna help you. Inflammation is the cornerstone of all disease, including mental illness. If your gut's not healthy, you're going to be more anxious.

Speaker 1:
[00:35] The first step in managing anxiety is not getting into it. The second thing is wrong. Every day, you are making your brain better, or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. Hi, I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. I've experienced firsthand the powerful impact that proper supplementation can have on your brain, your body and your mind. That's why I founded BrainMD. Our formulas are scientifically created from decades of clinical research designed to help you think clearer, feel better and improve every aspect of your health. Whether it's Brain and Body Power Max, the same formula I used in the world's largest study of NFL players to optimize brain performance, to happy saffron, to boost mood and memory, and Pro BrainBiotics Max to improve the gut-brain connection. BrainMD delivers the highest quality science-backed solutions to help you think and feel better. Tana and I take many of our products every day. And as a special offer, just for our listeners, you can save 20% on your next order. Visit brainmd.com and use the code PODCAST20. With a better brain, always comes a better life. Welcome back to the podcast. This week, Tana and I are wrapping up our two-part episode, series on how to manage your anxiety and put your brain into a healing environment. This episode will be going over solutions to help you with your anxiety. I think of it sort of as basic training for your mind. Well, hello.

Speaker 3:
[02:43] Hello.

Speaker 1:
[02:44] So nice to see you again. You often say I calm your anxiety. Well, you're predicting the worst and raising my...

Speaker 3:
[02:54] I am preparing for the worst and expecting the best and keeping your anxiety high.

Speaker 1:
[03:01] So I want us to be really practical on helping people. So if you see it as a signal rather than a problem, you can go, so why is my brain predicting the worst? Because that's often what generates anxiety.

Speaker 3:
[03:24] There's a very big difference between anxiety and predicting the worst. Because someone who predicts the worst isn't necessarily anxious. They might be making other people anxious, though.

Speaker 1:
[03:37] I teach all of my patients. So step one is don't believe every stupid thing you think. We call it killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts that steal your happiness. And I always show my patients nine different types of ants. All or nothing, things are all good or all bad. Just the bad ants where you focus on what's wrong, ignore all the things that are right, labeling, mind reading. The ant that drives anxiety, that drives panic, is fortune-telling. Where you predict things are going to turn out badly, even though you don't have evidence for it. And then what happens is the ants link to other ants. They then stack and then they attack you. And I used to be, I don't know if I've actually ever told you this, maybe I have, is I get a bad thought, which would then lead to another bad thought, which would then lead to another bad thought. So if I was almost in an accident, You? Yeah. If I was almost in an accident, rather than go, thank God, I'm okay, I would see the accident. I'd then see the car burst into flames. I'd then see myself in the hospital, burned 90% of my body. And I would see the nurse and she's not nearly as cute as you. My brain would just like go.

Speaker 3:
[05:23] Okay. Is there something?

Speaker 1:
[05:24] That's what I see with people who have panic disorders. It's not the one thought. It's the linking, the stacking and the attacking.

Speaker 3:
[05:33] So is there something wrong with me that like I'm a little bit refreshing for me that you used to do that because you're so Pollyanna. Like not that you were like in pain or tortured, but rather that you were normal.

Speaker 1:
[05:50] No that's not normal.

Speaker 3:
[05:52] Well, it's normal. It's not healthy.

Speaker 1:
[05:53] But that's what people who have anxiety do. No, I grew up and I was…

Speaker 3:
[05:57] I'm just saying it gives me hope.

Speaker 1:
[05:58] very anxious as a child. And I don't know that we've actually ever…

Speaker 3:
[06:04] And anyone listening, that should give you hope because I literally live with Pollyanna who like thinks nothing bad can happen in the world.

Speaker 1:
[06:10] It's training. It's a lot of training. So growing up, my brother beat me up all the time. We have home movies, all the home movies of me when I was under six, I'm being beaten up by this person. And when I was 50, my dad thought, oh, I want to give all the kids home movies. And I'm like, why didn't you stop him? And he said somebody had to take the movies, which was the dumbest answer. I'm just like, no, that's a dumb answer. And I don't know, I haven't talked very much about this on the podcast, but I wet my bed until I was like nine. What does that mean? Every morning, I woke up in a panic. And I mean, there's just such shame associated with that. I wish my mom would have known about imipramine or DDAVP. They're simple medications that help.

Speaker 3:
[07:14] Well, they had awful ways they treated that.

Speaker 1:
[07:16] I have five sisters, so it was like chaotic in my house. An older brother that was beating me up, waking up anxious every morning. My brain was trained to look for what was wrong. And I was 28 in my psychiatric residency when one of our professors said, you have to teach your patients not to believe every stupid thing they think. But I believed every stupid thing I thought. And I remember as a kid, I would bite my fingernails and sometimes they would bleed or pick my skin because I was being raised in an environment where I was looking for the worst. And so, you know, almost 72 now, I'm like peaceful and calm because I do the things we're going to talk about in this episode. And I'm so happy, you know, my best friend, my partner. You don't see me as anxious because I'm not.

Speaker 3:
[08:27] No, I don't see you as anxious. You generally are.

Speaker 1:
[08:30] And part of that is I take Happy Saffron every day. We'll talk about supplements. But I don't believe everything I think.

Speaker 3:
[08:40] No. And when something upsets you, you quickly get it under control. I know everybody's got their ways, you know, that they sort of deal with anxiety, whether it's good or bad, whether it's healthy or not. I think one of the ways that I learned how to deal with some of my anxiety from feeling like things were out of control, like even as a child, was because I know you're going to say this is a bad thing. But when I feel like I'm preparing for something or I am prepared for something, that thing no longer bothers me. While you think I'm preparing for the end of the world, it's not that. It's that while I'm in the process of preparing, I feel more in control. It's why I practice martial arts. It's why I prepare for disasters. It's the preparation.

Speaker 1:
[09:22] There's a difference between being prepared and thinking the end of the world is always coming. Not that you do.

Speaker 3:
[09:33] No, I think I prepare.

Speaker 1:
[09:35] So being prepared is one way to manage. And both you and I, if we have to be at the airport at one, we're there by 11.

Speaker 3:
[09:47] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[09:48] Because you never know what bad thing could happen on the way to the airport. Being prepared is an antidote for anxiety. Being over prepared creates a lot of stress and wasted time. And so the first step in managing anxiety is not giving in to it. So if we talk about people who have panic disorders, that all of a sudden, their heart starts to race, they have this impending sense of doom, their hands start to sweat, their muscles are tight, they can't see straight. They're often say this happens in a grocery store or it happens at a party. Their first impulse is to leave. And what I tell all of my patients, don't leave unless it's dangerous. Like if you're walking in downtown Detroit at two o'clock in the morning, leave because it's dangerous. But if it's not dangerous, don't leave otherwise the anxiety will control you. The second thing is breathe.

Speaker 3:
[11:02] And in martial arts, we do the same thing. So in martial arts, they teach you the same thing. Run if you can, get out of the situation. So it's awareness and avoidance if you can do that. But if you can't and you are in a situation that you can't get out of, the first thing you have to do is control your physiology because your sympathetic system will take over, that adrenaline will kick in. Same thing happens in a panic attack, right? So breathing is number one. It's like getting your eyes.

Speaker 1:
[11:29] And it's in a very specific way.

Speaker 3:
[11:31] Right.

Speaker 1:
[11:32] And basically, if you just remember anything, take twice as long to breathe out as you breathe in. And I teach all of my patients the 15 second breath. So take a big breath, four seconds in. Hold it for a second or two, and then eight seconds out. And almost everyone who just takes five, 15 second breaths, so under a minute and a half, they feel more relaxed. You can control your physiology if you control your breath. And then write down what you're thinking. This is so helpful because often it's the anxiety. The anxiety is driven by the ant. Yeah. The ant that started and then linked to other ants, and then stacked with a whole bunch of ants and then attacked you. You have to go back to the original thought and question it and write it down. And I remember when you and I first met, I took you to a weekend in Big Sur with Byron Katie. And it was just so interesting. Do you remember that? Yeah. And writing down your thoughts and then questioning them.

Speaker 3:
[13:06] It was very powerful.

Speaker 1:
[13:08] You just take away their power.

Speaker 3:
[13:11] Right.

Speaker 1:
[13:11] And generally, the thoughts associated with anxiety, you're predicting the worst. And then you're making it worse. Do you have a thought, example? I mean, I have all sorts of them.

Speaker 3:
[13:27] But I think moms, for moms, a big one is a lot of their thoughts are focused around their family, their kids. The fear of losing a child or something happens to your child. I mean, I think the minute you give birth, you never sleep again. It's like sleeping through the night becomes difficult. And then when your kids start driving, it's really hard.

Speaker 1:
[13:46] So I remember when Chloe was little.

Speaker 3:
[13:50] Oh, I just, I did therapy over it. It was really difficult.

Speaker 1:
[13:53] If something happened to her, I'd never be okay.

Speaker 3:
[13:56] Oh no, I didn't think I'd live through it. And I know I have friends who have lost children. And I just, I've always thought to myself that, how, how do you do that? So the thought of that would make me so anxious. I mean, I've got every one of my family on, on an app. You know, I can see where they're at at all times. And the rule in my house, if you take yourself off the app, then you don't get like any privileges whatsoever. Like it's like, because it's my anxiety, you know, over the people I love. So yeah, that's probably my biggest anxiety, my biggest fear.

Speaker 1:
[14:27] Did you ever do the work on that?

Speaker 3:
[14:29] Yes. And it helped. I mean, it doesn't help you with that fear of loss as a mom, but it did help in a lot of ways. Because what I ended up coming to is this is her life, it's not my life. And what it really boiled down to in the end, after a lot of work, was it's not fair for me to smother her or cripple her and try to control everything because it's her life. She's going to...

Speaker 1:
[14:54] Doesn't she say that to you sometimes?

Speaker 3:
[14:56] Oh, no, she's 12 years old. No, no, no, I have a 12 year old at the time who I'm like, be careful of this, be careful. I'm also a trauma nurse, so I see traumas in my head everywhere I go. So I'm like, be careful of this, be careful of that, don't do this, do that. She literally looked at me and said, don't put your trauma on me, go to therapy. Like who says that at 12 years old?

Speaker 1:
[15:17] Our child. So the questions that we've talked about before on the podcast, that I'd love them from Byron Katie. So you write it down. If I lost my child, I would die. That's a fortune telling answer. You identify which of the nine times, and then you go, is it true? And initially, you probably say yes.

Speaker 3:
[15:49] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[15:51] And the second question is, is it absolutely true?

Speaker 3:
[15:54] Yeah, I probably just wish I was dead.

Speaker 1:
[15:58] The third question is how does that thought make you feel?

Speaker 3:
[16:01] Terrible. Absolutely terrible. It's paralyzing. Like it makes me go down this crazy dark rabbit hole. Makes me want to control everything.

Speaker 1:
[16:12] And the fourth question is how would you feel if you didn't have that thought?

Speaker 3:
[16:16] More peaceful. More able to let her develop normally.

Speaker 1:
[16:21] And then you take the original thought, if something happens to her, I'll die. And you turn it to the opposite.

Speaker 3:
[16:30] I won't die.

Speaker 1:
[16:31] If something happens to her, I won't die.

Speaker 3:
[16:33] Right, which is truer than the original. Doesn't feel that powerful. I think one of the ones that feels truer is no, me doing this, me having these thoughts is not killing me, but it's definitely torture.

Speaker 1:
[16:49] And in the system of questions, like I'm doing it to myself.

Speaker 3:
[16:54] And I think one of the things that came to me that I just remembered, because this was very powerful for me. Something could happen to you once, but you do it to yourself, you relive that thing, and you've done it a thousand times. So I actually, in a sense, made my worst fear happen a thousand times in my head because I just kept living it. Yeah, so I was, I'm the one killing myself because I'm reliving that thought like a thousand times, even though it hasn't even happened.

Speaker 1:
[17:24] Well, I love when you turn it around. Byron Katie talks about three turnarounds, opposite, I'm not going to die, self, and others. And when it's, I'm killing her, is one of the turnarounds. I'm killing myself.

Speaker 3:
[17:48] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[17:50] And with all the questions, you know, is it true? Is it absolutely true? How does the thought make me feel? How would I feel without the thought? Turn it around opposite self, others. There's no right or wrong answer to them.

Speaker 3:
[18:05] It just makes you think.

Speaker 1:
[18:06] It's just a meditation. It's just a question.

Speaker 3:
[18:11] And it cracks the thought.

Speaker 1:
[18:12] And it cracks the thought.

Speaker 3:
[18:13] Because when you think about it, that's where the thought came from. It's like, this is her life. I don't have the right to put all my, in her words, put my trauma on her.

Speaker 1:
[18:23] If you're struggling with anxiety, it might have something to do with how your brain works. And too often, doctors make diagnoses based on whatever symptoms you tell them, and then give you medicines that may or may not be effective. What we discovered at Amen Clinics is when we look at the brain, we can better target treatment to your brain rather than just a cluster of symptoms. Call us. Looking at your brain may be one of the most important things you ever do. Go to amenclinics.com. It's so powerful. We should do another one. You know, it's another anxious thought. I'm getting old. Oh, my goodness. I'm 72 this year.

Speaker 3:
[19:18] And women and menopause.

Speaker 1:
[19:19] And you just posted something on menopause.

Speaker 3:
[19:22] I mean, I don't know what God's plan was with this, but women in their 50s, it's like you've got empty nest, sandwich generation, possibly losing a parent, and menopause all at the same time. It's like, what was the grand design in that plan? I'm just kind of curious.

Speaker 1:
[19:38] It seems a little comical to me.

Speaker 3:
[19:41] I'm glad you think it's funny. None of us think it's funny. You know, it's crazy.

Speaker 1:
[19:46] No, divine comedy is what I was thinking.

Speaker 3:
[19:49] I was thinking of divine tragedy.

Speaker 1:
[19:52] But I actually deal with that in a lot of my patients, you know, is they turn 50 or they turn 60 or 80 or 90. They're like, I'm going to die. It's like, well, is that true? Yes. Is it absolutely true? Not today. How does that make me feel? Anxious, sad, lonely? How would I feel if I didn't have the thought? Fine. I'm 72. Well, that means you don't have that much time left. Get busy living.

Speaker 3:
[20:33] Right.

Speaker 1:
[20:34] Right. Put it in the present.

Speaker 3:
[20:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[20:38] Or when you turn around to yourself, is those thoughts are killing me.

Speaker 3:
[20:46] Yeah, the thoughts are. So I think that is probably the best turnaround.

Speaker 1:
[20:49] So it's not my chronological age that's killing me.

Speaker 3:
[20:52] Right. And the same is true even with the previous one we did. It's the thoughts that are killing you.

Speaker 1:
[20:58] And it was so insightful of you when you go, oh my God, I've killed her thousands of times. I made myself miserable. Thousands of time. And just because you have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true, whether or not it's helpful, whether or not it's useful. And I like the verse in the New Testament, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you can test to see if it fits God's good, perfect and pleasing well.

Speaker 3:
[21:32] And focus on, not that verse, but focus on what's good and pleasing. And you're not supposed to focus on.

Speaker 1:
[21:39] Philippians 4A, think on whatever is true, right, good, lovely, excellent.

Speaker 3:
[21:43] You're not supposed to focus on negativity.

Speaker 1:
[21:47] Well, it's not helpful. Right. So people go, oh, this doesn't work. Do you know what that means when you say that? It means you've actually not really done the work. In my experience, and people go, oh, I tried that, and I tried it once and it didn't work for them. I'm like, no, you need to do it 30 times.

Speaker 3:
[22:07] Yeah, you don't go to the gym once.

Speaker 1:
[22:09] Yeah, like one of my NBA players, I'm like, how often do you practice free throws? Every day.

Speaker 3:
[22:14] Every day. So happiness is not a thing you do once. It's a daily practice. Joy is a daily practice. All of this is a daily practice.

Speaker 1:
[22:23] So meditation is actually very important to you, why?

Speaker 3:
[22:28] Because it's sanity. Because I have a monkey mind. So it calms the monkeys.

Speaker 1:
[22:37] So how do you do it?

Speaker 3:
[22:39] So I have a couple ways I do it. I think there's three different ways I like. One of them is just, you know, in the beginning, I couldn't just calm my mind. It just, my brain was too busy. So I did guided meditations because doing something was easier for me. And that's a good way to start for people who have trouble just calming their mind. I do like the calming my mind now. They're just quieting my mind for a short time. Praying, that's me talking to God. I think meditating is me listening to God. Praying is me talking to God. So I can get both of those out and it's great. And then there's also active meditations and almost hypnosis type meditations that I really like, like self-hypnosis type meditations that are fantastic. And then there's my fourth one and this is a bonus and it's rage journaling.

Speaker 1:
[23:25] And you like rage journaling.

Speaker 3:
[23:28] Love rage journaling.

Speaker 1:
[23:29] Actually talk about it in Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain.

Speaker 3:
[23:31] I love it.

Speaker 1:
[23:32] Because repressed rage creates anxiety.

Speaker 3:
[23:38] And like we all want to focus on gratitude and that's great. But if you've got repressed rage, focusing on gratitude is sort of like saying, there's no weeds in my garden when there's weeds in your garden. Getting the rage out is like pulling the weeds so that you can focus on the flowers.

Speaker 1:
[23:52] So how do you do it?

Speaker 3:
[23:53] So it feels really weird at first, actually, because these are the thoughts that are so dark that you don't even want to, if you're a good girl, most of us have been taught to be polite and good girls and whatever. It's really hard to say those things. So even writing them feels like, oh my gosh, is someone watching me? Like who's looking over my shoulder? Like it's just really hard to write those things that you're like really that angry about. But once you start doing it, oh, it opens a floodgate. And you just write every thing that just irritates you in the worst way as possible, and then burn it or shred it. Make sure you don't leave it around. But what happens is it is like pulling the weeds because then you literally can focus on what's good. You focus on the flowers. And then it just, you feel this release.

Speaker 1:
[24:42] So it's balance of being honest about your feelings. And if the feelings could come up out of your body, where would they go?

Speaker 3:
[24:50] So many of us are so afraid of our thoughts and feelings because we think they have so much power. They're just thoughts. They're just feelings and they're not even accurate. But we have this idea that I can't think that because it's like got power. It doesn't.

Speaker 2:
[25:08] Get it out.

Speaker 3:
[25:09] Get it out of there.

Speaker 1:
[25:11] So how I found Byron Katie's work is I went through a breakup and I was just not normal for like six months and I would turn the radio up so loud so I couldn't hear my thoughts. And when I found her book, I realized she and I were published by the same imprint at Random House and so I had them introduce me to her and she ended up coming to the clinic and we just loved each other. But it was so powerful. Don't block your thoughts, don't drink your thoughts away, go in to them and question them.

Speaker 3:
[25:58] Well, I did her nine day course and I will tell you it is not for the faint of heart. So I wanted to leave multiple times. It was not for the faint of heart, let me tell you. But very powerful.

Speaker 1:
[26:10] Because it teaches you that you just don't have to believe the noise that comes in your head. There are also hypnosis. We had Dr. David Spiegel on, and that was wonderful. Our app BrainFit Life 5.0 has hypnosis exercises on it that I do. There's actually 18 of them. Now, there's music that calms your brain. There's meditation, including a loving-kindness meditation, one of my favorite meditations. And then there are nutraceuticals that I want to talk about. So let's talk about nutraceuticals. And when I first started looking at the brain in 1991, I would scan people who are on Benzos. And I'm not a fan of Benzos. Now I was because I was taught in my residency, Xanax actually came on to the market when I was a psychiatric resident. And some of our professors were using pretty high doses of them. They're like, these are so great for anxiety. And they chill you out. The problem is they're addictive. They increase the risk of dementia. And once you start them, you may never stop them. And I saw their brain scans. They look like they were drinkers. And I'm like, no, I don't like that. And I remember in medical school, first do no harm, use the least toxic, most effective treatments. So in the early 90s, I'm like, what are natural things to calm the brain? And so I learned about kava kava. That that can be addictive. I learned about magnesium, so helpful. Learned about theanine from green tea that will calm you but also help you focus. I learned about gaba and people say, oh, but gaba doesn't cross the blood brain barriers. No, but it calms what's going down in your gut, which then calms your brain. It clearly has brain positive effects. And well, what about ashwagandha has been shown in herb to calm anxiety. And so some of our best selling products are theanine gummies. We have a fun story about that. Gaba calming, which has been one of our best sellers for over a decade, or fairly new for us is calm my brain. So theanine, theanine gummies, gaba and magnesium, magnesium, theanine, ashwagandha, all extremely effective and popular. And you had three calm my brain.

Speaker 3:
[29:13] No, no, no, no, no. I called you and asked you how many should I take of L-theanine and gaba. And you said four. And so-

Speaker 1:
[29:21] Well, wait a minute. You had three gaba calming?

Speaker 3:
[29:24] No, I had four.

Speaker 1:
[29:26] Well then you took too many.

Speaker 3:
[29:27] Oh, you told me four.

Speaker 1:
[29:28] I had four theanine. I say, you can take up to four.

Speaker 3:
[29:31] I couldn't even get off the couch.

Speaker 1:
[29:33] I know. You look like you were stoned.

Speaker 3:
[29:35] Yes. I was like out of it.

Speaker 1:
[29:39] I love that.

Speaker 3:
[29:40] I know you do. Because I was actually quiet.

Speaker 1:
[29:45] It was unusual. But anyway, sometimes these combinations can be just so powerful.

Speaker 3:
[29:52] Yeah. Don't start with four. Do not start with four of each. No. My go-to at night, I have very high thyroid, which keeps me a little wired and tired. My go-to at night is definitely magnesium. I do one restful sleep. I know not everybody wants to do melatonin. It gives them weird dreams. But I do like the restful sleep, just one milligram. And I do like the L-theanine a lot. It helps a lot.

Speaker 1:
[30:19] And we have magnesium chewables and Brain MD.

Speaker 3:
[30:22] If I'm anxious about something, like when my mom passed, I'll do GABA.

Speaker 1:
[30:25] Brain MD has a brand new magnesium capsule as well. So things that can help. What about food?

Speaker 3:
[30:33] So I think one of the big things is staying away from stimulating foods. If you're anxious, obviously things like caffeine, sugar are stimulants, right? So you want to stay away from things that are stimulating. But I think people underestimate the power of nutrition. And if you are eating an inflammatory diet, it's not going to help you. Inflammation is literally the cornerstone of all disease, including mental illness. If your gut's not healthy, you're going to be more anxious. You are more likely to be depressed. Because if your microbiome isn't healthy, right? Up to, what is it, 85%, 90% of the serotonin you make is in your gut. So very important to have a healthy gut, very important to cut out stimulants, and very important to eat anti-inflammatory. If you're having issues with your moods.

Speaker 1:
[31:24] With anxiety, trauma can show up, and you're being triggered. I want all of my patients to hunt for their triggers. If you get triggered, write about it. Bring it to therapy. Let's talk about it, because then something like Havenain or EMDR can be so helpful to calm it down. But you always want to understand, where is it coming from, right? As we talked about earlier, feeling really anxious in the situation. What are you thinking? What are you feeling? When's the first time you had that thought or feeling? And then some just simple bilateral hemispheres stimulation, whether it's rubbing your hands together or doing the butterfly hug, can be just so helpful.

Speaker 3:
[32:19] Those are quick things and I love those because it's just so important that you can do that in the moment. I know for me, like we use the example of my fear of losing Chloe. And I realized I had a trigger like that when she was little, because I had been assaulted. We talked about in the last episode when I was 15 and drugged down an alley. And I had this weird trigger that happened when I was bending over putting her in a car seat when she was a baby. And I thought, oh, I'm so vulnerable. Someone could just take her from me. And I've heard a lot of moms say that. They feel very vulnerable when they have a baby because you're vulnerable even by yourself. But now you've got this child that you're responsible for. And I had done self-defense classes on my own, but I always sort of felt like I could take care of myself. So when I had that, I had sort of an extreme reaction to it, this like trigger and like this overwhelming fear that was connected to that anxiety of losing her. And one thing I know that helped me, in addition to some of the things you're talking about now, those were more momentary. But when I started practicing martial arts and I put her in martial arts, because it started to build power, it changed that identity of like, oh, I'm a victim. Someone could take this special thing from me and hurt her to I'm powerful. And I'm teaching her to be powerful. It's just the act of doing it was really helpful.

Speaker 1:
[33:37] And when she broke a board with her head, I was so unhappy.

Speaker 3:
[33:44] I didn't know she was going to do that.

Speaker 1:
[33:48] You used to always, you used to also take those triggers to EMDR.

Speaker 3:
[33:54] EMDR was amazing. I'd say martial arts and EMDR are my two favorite things that I have done for myself. Absolutely. I mean, there's nothing like beating up big padded guys. Let's face it. But EMDR is phenomenal.

Speaker 1:
[34:07] How do you think it helped you?

Speaker 3:
[34:08] Because I think I'd love to say it's because you get to beat people up, but it's really not that. No, no, not martial arts, EMDR.

Speaker 1:
[34:17] Mike, are you beating up people?

Speaker 3:
[34:20] Okay. But let me finish that so people don't think I just like to beat people up. It was an identity shift. That's what really helped me about martial arts. Now, EMDR. I don't know why it works. But what's weird is I was very averse to therapy. I didn't want to date a psychiatrist, and I didn't want to go to therapy and bang my head against a wall and hear Psycho Babble all day long. I just didn't want to do it. I did not want to do it. So when I did it, because you gave me 10 sessions as your first gift to me, which was– I'm like, here we go. But I went and I was astounded. It was like a bizarre shortcut through therapy. I don't understand it. I still don't really understand why it works. I know it stimulates both sides of your brain. But it's like you don't have to get overwhelmed and bogged down in too much therapy. You can if you want to. But really it's like this shortcut through therapy. And somehow it releases the trauma or it helps you process it. I'm not quite sure.

Speaker 1:
[35:23] It integrates the left and right hemispheres.

Speaker 3:
[35:25] Wild.

Speaker 1:
[35:25] And calms down your limbic or emotional brain.

Speaker 3:
[35:28] So I ended up going for two years because I didn't realize how messed up I was. Your ten sessions turned into two years.

Speaker 1:
[35:35] And we never fight.

Speaker 3:
[35:36] No. It really changed how I see it.

Speaker 1:
[35:39] And we just sort of like each other.

Speaker 3:
[35:40] Yeah. And when either one of us do something, it's really quick. You're really quick to like recognize it and take responsibility and just go, okay, I have power over this. Because we don't trigger each other. I have power over this. Like I have the ability to make this better or make it worse.

Speaker 1:
[35:56] So I know we've given you a lot of information, but anxiety is not something you have to live with. It's something that you can manage. And like we said in the last section, you need some anxiety, right? The goal is never, is not to have no anxiety. You just want to have it so that it gets you to the airport on time and you're prepared. Now, your anxiety, you've done the simple things and it's not working like you hope. Call us at Amen Clinics. I mean, I think looking at your brain can be incredibly helpful. We always think here in four big circles is what's the biology? And so looking at your brain can be really helpful. What's the psychology? You have to program it and deal with past trauma. What's the social circle of anxiety? Because clearly, if your relationship is not what you want, it's going to make you more anxious. And spiritually, which is ultimately, why do you care? And I think you've actually done a wonderful job of putting the pain from the past into purpose, to make a difference in the lives of other people, which is why I love doing the podcast with you and most everything else with you. There are days when I need to be at my best, whether it's back to back clinic sessions, long writing days, or just keeping up with life. That's when I take geek energy from BrainMD. It gives me clean, steady energy without jitters or crashes. And I'm not the only one who loves it. It just won a 2025 Nexty Award, beating over 500 other supplements. If you want real energy that lasts, check it out at brainmd.com and use the code PODCAST20 for 20% off. Anyways, we hope this has been helpful. Leave us a comment, a question, a review. Subscribe to the podcast. Every day, you're making your brain better, or you're making it worse. Our goal is for you to change your brain for the positive every day.