Tip of the Day: Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

One night while I was up at 3 o'clock in the morning with my dear sweet non-sleeping baby, I was watching this amazing program on PBS called Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. It changed the way I think about health! Everything I do, what I eat, how I interact with my family, and what I think affects the way I think and feel. Dr. Amen has some tips on his web site http://www.amenclinics.com/my-brain-health/brain-health-club/50-brain-dos-and-brain-donts/. These are all great reminders for me and things I'm going to start working on and incorporate with my family:

50 Brain Dos and Don'ts:

Brain Dos:
Wear a helmet in high risk situations
Drink lots of water
Eat healthy
Take gingko biloba, Vitamin E and ibuprofen everyday
Think positive healthy thoughts
Love, feed and exercise your internal anteater to rid yourself of ANTs (automatic negative thoughts)
Everyday focus on the things you are grateful for in your life
Watch the Disney movie Pollyanna
Spend time with positive, uplifting people
Spend time with people you want to be like (you are more likely to become like them)
Work on your people skills to become more connected to enhance limbic bonds
Talk to others in loving, helpful ways
Surround yourself with great smells
Build a library of wonderful experiences
Be nice to others
Exercise
Eat in ways specifically tailored to your brain
Learn diaphragmatic breathing
Learn and use self-hypnosis and meditation on a daily basis
Remember the 18/40/60 rule
Effectively confront and deal with conflictual situations
Develop clear goals for your life (relationships, work, money and self) and look at them everyday.
Focus on what you like a lot more than what you don’t like
Collect penguins, or at least send them to me
Have meaning, purpose, excitement and stimulation in your life
Do not be another person’s stimulant
Use brainwave biofeedback or audio-visual stimulation when needed
Notice when you’re stuck, distract yourself and come back to the problem later
Think through answers before automatically saying no
Write out options and solutions when you feel stuck
Seek the counsel of others when you feel stuck (often just talking about feeling stuck will open new options)
Memorize and recite the Serenity Prayer daily and whenever bothered by repetitive thoughts (God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.)
Don’t try to convince someone else who is stuck, take a break and come back to them later
Use paradoxical requests in dealing with cingulate people
Make naturally oppositional children mind you the first time (through a firm, kind, authoritative stance)
Strive for wonderful experiences
Enhance your memory skills
Sing and hum whenever you can
Make beautiful music a part of your life
Make beautiful smells a part of your life
Touch others often (appropriately)
Make love with your partner
Move in rhythms
Use a skilled psychotherapist when needed
Use an EMDR therapist to deal with trauma
Take head injuries seriously, even minor ones
Take medications when needed
Take herbal remedies when needed to optimize brain function
Look for underlying brain problems in substance abusers
Do full brain evaluations for people who do terrible things

Brain Don’ts

Isolate a developing baby
Use alcohol, tobacco or drugs or much caffeine when pregnant
Ignore erratic behavior
Lie around the house and never exercise
Ignore concussions
Smoke
Drink much caffeine
Drink much alcohol
Do drugs (NO heroin, inhalants, mushrooms, PCP, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines (unless in prescribed doses for ADD)
Eat without forethought on what foods are best for your brain
Drive without wearing a seatbelt
Ride a motorcycle without a helmet
Ride a bicycle, skateboard, roller blade, snowboard, etc. without a helmet
Hit a soccer ball with your head
Bang your head when you’re frustrated (protect the head of children who are head bangers)
Bunje jump
Hang out with people who do drugs, fight, or are involved in other dangerous activities (unless you are looking for brain damage)
Allow your breathing to get out of control
Think in black-or-white terms
Think in words like always, never, every time, every one
Focus on the negative things in your life
Predict the worst
Think only with your feelings
Read other people’s minds
Blame other people for your problems
Label yourself or others with negative terms
Beat yourself or others with guilt (very ineffective)
Personalize situations that have little to do with you
Feed your ANTs
Use sex as a weapon with your partner
Talk to others in a hateful way
Push people away
Be around toxic smells
Be around toxic people
Focus too much on what other people think of you (odds are they aren’t thinking about you at all)
Allow your life to just happen without you directing and planning it
Take the “stimulant bait” from other people
Allow thoughts to go over and over in your head
Automatically say no to others, think first if what they want fits with your goals
Automatically say yes to others, think first if what they want fits with your goals
Argue with someone who is stuck
Isolate yourself when you feel worried, depressed or panicky
Allow naturally oppositional children to be oppositional
Listen to toxic music
Blame substance abusers as morally defective
Refuse to take medications when needed
Self-medicate, when there are problems get help from professionals
Deny you have problems
Refuse to listen to the people you love who are trying to tell you to get help
Withhold love, touch and companionship to those you love as a way to express anger