5 Tools For a Better Brain & 3 Daylight Savings Hacks from Dr. Amen | The Mel Robbins Podcast

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Your brain's physical health creates your mind

  Psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen dislikes the term "mental illness" and prefers "brain health issues," since the brain's physical functioning produces your thoughts and moods. Alzheimer's scans make this obvious, and he says COVID's brain inflammation is linked to a raised chance of new psychiatric symptoms in the months afterward. The effects are quick: sleep well tonight and your mind is better tomorrow; get drunk and it's worse.

• 02

  Three steps: brain envy, avoid what hurts it, do what helps it

  "Brain envy" means actually caring about the three pounds between your ears. He contrasts it with his home town of Newport Beach, where people lavish attention on their faces and bodies instead. The second step is to know what harms the brain; he says most second graders would score 90% on a list of 100 brain-damaging things. The third is to do brain-helping things regularly.

• 03

  The "mother tiny habit": is this good or bad for my brain?

  Developed after six months working with Stanford behavior scientist BJ Fogg, the habit is to pause for three seconds at each decision and ask whether it's good or bad for your brain. He says to answer it "with information and love": love of yourself, your family and your mission. It's his one recommendation if you only adopt a single change.

• 04

  Serotonin and dopamine counterbalance each other

  He says low serotonin makes people worried, rigid, argumentative and quick to feel disrespected, which can look selfish but is really inflexibility. About 90% of the body's serotonin is made in the gut, but the brain makes its own from tryptophan, which needs a carbohydrate to reach the brain, so turkey with sweet potato works. When serotonin rises, dopamine tends to fall, which is why some patients on SSRIs feel happier but stop caring. One stopped doing his taxes, and Dr. Amen had to rebalance his medication.

• 05

  Drip dopamine, don't dump it

  Dopamine is "the molecule of more." Cocaine, alcohol, nicotine and vaping, scary movies and new love all dump it, and he argues phones, social media and video games wear out pleasure centers over time. Instead, seek micro-moments like holding hands and eye contact. With new love, enjoy it but hold off on big decisions. He says signs of low dopamine include tiredness, low motivation, poor concentration and impulsivity, and the brain can recover within months.

• 06

  Chronic stress hormones shrink memory and add belly fat

  Cortisol is essential, but he says chronically high levels from stress and negativity put fat on the belly and shrink the hippocampus, the brain's memory center. During his own grief about 17 years ago, he couldn't remember names. He argues news outlets profit from negativity because the brain notices threats first, so limit your consumption. Meditation, prayer, hypnosis and regular relaxation help, as does asking whether something is worth losing brain cells over.

• 07

  Don't believe every thought you have

  He was 28, a psychiatry resident at Walter Reed, before a professor taught him this. Growing up as one of seven children, his mind used to "torture" him. He calls negative self-talk "ANTs," automatic negative thoughts, and treats thoughts like weather: suffering comes from attaching to them. The question he'd tattoo on himself is "Is it true?"

• 08

  Chronic tiredness has many possible causes

  First get your thyroid checked, along with anemia and iron or ferritin. He looks at four areas: biological (infections, gut, hormones, sleep apnea, which he says both men and women should be checked for if they snore or stop breathing at night), psychological (ANTs driving up cortisol), social (conflict and unforgiven hurts) and spiritual (purpose, which he links to more dopamine).

• 09

  Muscle and brain reserve decide how you weather a crisis

  At 68, Dr. Amen says strength lowers Alzheimer's risk and that frailty kills many older people. Muscle is your protein reserve, and the reserve you bring into an illness or accident often determines how you come out. He suggests walking "like you're late" about 45 minutes four or five times a week, plus strength training.