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Key insights from
Your Brain Is Always Listening: Tame the
Hidden Dragons That Control Your Happiness, Habits, and Hang-Ups
By
Daniel Amen
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What you’ll learn
Daniel Amen has been a
psychiatrist for decades and runs Amen Clinics, a network of medical
centers that have conducted more brain scans than any other institution in
the world—approaching 200,000 at the time of this book’s publication in
2021. In Your Brain Is
Always Listening, Amen shows us how hidden influences (dragons)
in our brains are always listening and ready to be activated. Amen explores
how these dragons operate and offers a crash course in how to tame your
dragons.
Read
on for key insights from Your Brain Is Always Listening.
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1. Dragons have
the power to rule your life and keep you trapped, but you have the power to
tame them.
Dragons are not just the
stuff of fairytales. You, along with everyone else, live with a whole host
of trouble-making dragons, and it is your mission to discover where they
lurk and what it is they are doing to your brain.
These “dragons” are those
hidden influences for which your brain is always listening. They can wreak
havoc on your brain’s proper functioning, “breathing fire” on certain parts
of your brain that prevent you from thinking clearly, enjoying life, and
achieving your dreams. Here are the most common and vicious:
-“Dragons from the Past”
are those memories and experiences that still light up the emotional
portions of your brain in the present.
-“They, Them, and Other
Dragons” are the dragons of others that flare up and wake up your own.
-“ANTS” or “automatic
negative thoughts” can pile up in your mind and keep you in a crippling
depression.
-“Bad Habit Dragons” make
themselves at home in your basal ganglia (the habit formation center of the
brain) and undermine your good intentions.
-“Scheming Dragons” get
lodged in your brain through advertisers, social media platforms, and
technological tools. They manipulate your behavior and take your money.
-“Addicted Dragons” are the
influences that form when Bad Habit Dragons rule the roost for prolonged
periods of time.
These dragons take
different forms, but they all exert profound influence on our mood and
behavior. Many of these dragons have been with us a long time—some since
birth. Others were awakened during critical periods in our development or
crept in during vulnerable moments in our lives. They will never go away,
but they can be tamed. By learning how to name these dragons, identifying
the triggers that provoke their brain-inflaming attacks, and applying the
appropriate techniques to mollify them, you will discover more freedom and
courage in your life.
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2. To avoid
Dragons of the Past inflaming your emotional brain, learn how to soothe
your brain.
Each of us has
memories—some are pleasant, others not so pleasant. These past experiences
awaken or create Dragons of the Past, hidden-but-profound influences that
fire up the emotionally reactive part of the brain called the amygdala, an
almond-shaped piece that sits in the temporal lobes. When dragons from our
past inflame the amygdala, we become irritable, cagey, anxious, irrational,
and vulnerable to automatic negative thoughts.
Far and away, the most
common Dragon of the Past is the Anxious Dragon, and it only became more
prevalent in the wake of the pandemic, the lockdown, and the uncertainty
that persisted month after month. These dragons leave us with the feeling
of dread and stress, and the belief that the world is not a safe place.
Oftentimes, children growing up with parents or older siblings who were
addicted to substances (or who were simply volatile or unreasonable) ended
up with Anxious Dragons. Situations in the present that take you back to
earlier chapters of your life in which you felt unsafe are common
activators. Anxious Dragons can spark panic attacks, bracing for the worst,
fears of failure or of being found lacking. They can make us
conflict-avoidant and evasive in situations that require socializing or
when we enter unfamiliar emotional territory. Common physical symptoms are
shallow breathing, elevated heart rate, tense or achy muscles, and hyper
vigilance.
To soothe the Anxious
Dragon, the first step is to name it. Ask yourself if you are experiencing
any of the above symptoms. If they sound all too familiar, acknowledge the
Anxious Dragon. Remember the positive side of the ledger: Your anxiety can
help you be prepared for important events and prime you to anticipate
potential problems. Deep, diaphragmatic breathing will also help you
self-soothe: Breathing in and out through the nose, inhaling for three
seconds, and then exhaling for six. Do this 10 times. When a person is
angry, their breathing becomes shallow and quick, and the anxious person
can begin mimicking those physiological tics. A loving kindness meditation
could also help. Sit still for a moment then gently repeat (either audibly
or in your mind) statements like these:
May I be safe and secure.
May I be healthy and strong.
May I be happy and purposeful.
May I be at peace.
As you slowly repeat
phrases like these, they will become part of you. You can then pay it
forward and extend the benedictions to friends and maybe even enemies.
Bullied kids have reported feeling better when they express good wishes for
their tormentors.
There are other Dragons of
the Past, like Abandoned and Invisible Dragons, Inferior Dragons, Wounded
Dragons, Shaming Dragons, Entitled Dragons, Responsible Dragons, Judgmental
Dragons, Grief Dragons, and Ancestral Dragons. Whichever form these Dragons
of the Past take, it is vital to deal with them. Until we do, they will
inflame the amygdala and send us into one painful emotional spiral after
another. Some people never turn and face these dragons, and the pain sits
below the threshold of consciousness for the rest of their lives and they
call it “fate.” Thankfully, you have a choice in the matter. This does not
have to be you.
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3. Twelve Step
groups were founded before significant medical breakthroughs, and are
overdue for a revamp.
There is no question that
12 Step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA)
have positively impacted millions of recovering addicts. The first step in
either of these programs is for the participant to admit
helplessness—that change is not possible without the assistance of trusted
others and a Higher Power. As people progress through the steps, they learn
to take stock of their past, to make amends with the people they have hurt,
and to receive love from their Higher Power and themselves.
Twelve Step groups address
people’s spiritual, social, and psychological needs well, but they fail to
shed light on the biological dimension of humans, which is also a crucial
part of who we are. Given that AA was originally formed in 1935, the
deficiency is understandable, but scientific and technological advances
since that time allow us to better integrate biology into addiction
treatments.
Here are a few ideas for
taming the Addiction Dragon, ones that interweave our knowledge of the
brain and body into actions:
One important piece is to
ask yourself what you want—what you really want: not just spiritually,
emotionally, and socially, but also physically. Write it down, pin it up
somewhere, and then check in everyday and ask yourself, “Is my behavior
moving me toward what I really want?”
Another important step is
to become aware of when your Addicted Dragons have hijacked you. You must
become familiar with themes common to the hijacks, from environmental cues,
to emotional states, to what you feel in your body. This requires being
willing to admit addictive behavior in the first place. You are officially
addicted when your compulsive behavior negatively impacts relationships,
health, your job, and willingness to follow the law—but you persist in that
behavior anyway. Biological symptoms include changes in eating habits, no
memory of what happened while you were being hijacked, sickness whenever
you attempt to stop, and requiring more of a substance in order to feel as good
as you did previously.
Yet another part of taming
Addicted Dragons is to get your cravings under control because these
cravings start us tumbling back toward a relapse. To manage the cravings,
don’t let your blood sugar spike or tank. When blood sugar gets too low,
the Prefrontal Cortex (or PFC)—the region of rational, deliberative
decision making—is not nearly as active. This gives our Dragons more
freedom than they need because the Dragon Tamer is located in the PFC.
Eating sugary foods, skipping meals, and drinking alcohol all contribute to
plummeting blood sugar levels. Eat a healthy, high-protein breakfast
everyday. Avoid the simple sugars found in cookies, white bread, white
rice, and soda. Stay away from artificial sweeteners, which can be up to 600
times sweeter than regular sugar. Find ways to redirect your stress with
exercise, prayer, and meditation—rather than overeating, as many people do.
Yet another strategy for
taming Addicted Dragons is learning to drip dopamine instead of dumping it
all over your brain. Dopamine feels great, and it is good and healthy to
experience pleasure, but if we keep pulling the pleasure lever too often,
we can end up in addiction cycles, in which we need more and more of a
substance to get a comparable level of dopamine. Nicotine, cocaine,
pornography, and other drugs flood our systems with dopamine, making us
interpret the activities as highly desirable. But dumping dopamine runs
down the brain’s pleasure centers, often leaving a person feeling
withdrawn, depressed, and inadequate after the dump.
The key is to curb low-level dopamine dumps like binging a TV show, or
indulging in excessive caffeine, horror movies, and video games, and to
replace those dumps with activities that gently but meaningfully drip
dopamine, like yoga, massages, regular exercise, time outside in nature,
and hugs. Find people and activities that make you laugh. Begin your
morning by reflecting on three things that instill gratitude. Find foods
that trip the dopamine without opening the floodgates: poultry, almonds,
pumpkin seeds, turmeric, oregano, olive oil, and green tea.
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4. Automatic
Negative Thoughts that dragons whisper to your brain build on each other
and entrap you—if you let them.
Sometimes we have thoughts
that seem so incontrovertibly true that we do not even question whether or
not they are true. Sometimes those thoughts are so deeply ingrained in our
brains that we do not even know they are there. They are just part of the
cerebral landscape. Automatic negative thoughts, or ANTs, are those
thoughts that sneak in so naturally and invade our brain like ants at a picnic.
Remember that just because
you have a thought does not necessarily make it true. If we believed every
thought we had, we would be paralyzed and full of anxiety and
self-condemnation. Many people live in this state because they have never
learned to curb or question them. These ANTS are ideas that dragons whisper
to us that can harm us, our relationships, and our endeavors if we do
nothing about the infestation. Eliminate the ANTS, and you will tame your
dragons.
Some ANTs are
black-and-white. We think of things in terms of all good or all bad,
without any gradient. Other ANTs make us feel “less than.” We start
comparing ourselves to others and are unhappy whether we win or lose the
mini competitions we hold in our heads. Some ANTs prevent us from seeing
the good in situations. Some ANTs overload us with a pressure-filled list
of shoulds and musts. Labeling ANTs mercilessly judge everything
immediately, including self and others. Some ANTs are projections of how we
think other
people view us or a situation—and because ANTs are negative, the attempt at
mind reading is never charitable.
What is tricky about ANTs
is that they tend to stack on each other and gain force if we do not stop
them. “I am not good at public speaking” can link to “I’m going to lose my
job, which depends on public speaking” and to “I won’t be able to find new
work” and “My wife is going to leave me because I’m a loser” and “I’m going
to be alone the rest of my life” and “I should probably just kill myself.”
This might sound dramatic, but these kinds of ANT-driven progressions are
common.
So what do we do when
dragons muster an army of ANTs? Have conversations with the ANTs. Begin
with the question: “Is that true?” Then ask yourself how you feel when you
indulge that ANT. The answer is usually “scared,” “alone,” “inadequate,”
“weak,” or “incompetent.” Then ask yourself how you would feel if you did
not believe that ANT. Most of the time, people feel just the opposite:
courageous, connected, adequate, strong, and capable. End the interview
with a nugget to meditate on that speaks directly to the lie you have been
believing. For example, you could choose to meditate on the mantra, “I have
what it takes,” or “I am enough,” or “This world is better when I am part
of it.”
Your feelings are often
tied to whether you indulge negative thoughts or positive ones. If
your thoughts are mostly positive, your feelings will follow. This is not
about covering our eyes and pretending there is nothing wrong. The goal is
not simply positive thinking, but realistic thinking, and ANTs rarely
deliver reality.
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5. If you empower
your Dragon Tamer, your Dragon Tamer will return the favor.
In all the old tales, the
hero slays the dragon. While you cannot sly your internal dragons, you can
tame them. In order to train your dragons, you need to learn to strengthen
your inner Dragon Tamer. The Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) is your Dragon Tamer.
As the center of rational, deliberative decision making in your brain, it
is the part that makes us most human, and there is no species in which the
PFC is more pronounced.
The Dragon Tamer in your
brain is like a sheriff in the Wild West, a place vulnerable to weird
sexual or violent fantasies, spasms of inarticulate rage, fog-like
confusion, and deep sadness. With all the craziness going on, the sheriff
is needed to keep order. He protects, helps us formulate goals, plan ahead,
concentrate, judge, curb cravings, and maintain organization. The PFC is
sometimes referred to as the “executive brain” because of its role as
supervisor and decision maker.
But sometimes the Dragon
Tamer is lax, absent, or overbearing. Each of these approaches to Dragon
Taming leads to problems. When the Dragon Tamer is weak, ANTs begin to run
the show and dragons inflame the more primal emotion and habit centers of
the brain (the amygdala and basal ganglia, respectively). We make poorer
choices, and are more prone to cultivating bad habits and getting stuck in
addictions. In a word, all kinds of dragons run the show. It might seem
more pleasurable initially, but it will also increase the likelihood of job
loss, academic failure, divorce, imprisonment, debt, procrastination,
relapse, and inability to manage time and emotions.
Your dragons will never go
away, even if you yell at them or drown them out with substances and
distractions. In some cases, that only inflames them further. To strengthen
your Dragon Tamer, you need to know what it is you want, and be able to
articulate it clearly. Tell your PFC what you want, and your PFC will help
you get there. You become what your brain focuses on, so by focusing on
your goals everyday, your behavior becomes more intentional, more directed
by your Dragon Tamer than by an army of dragons that can derail your life.
Keep your PFC healthy and
engaged with regular exercise. Exercise increases blood flow to your Dragon
Tamer. Learn new things to keep your PFC dexterous. Eat healthy fats and
take supplements of omega-3s. Make sure you get enough sun or Vitamin D
supplements. Avoid taking unnecessary risks that could result in head
trauma. Nix marijuana and alcohol. Avoid obesity, maintain healthy sleep
patterns, and keep blood sugar balanced.
As you empower your Dragon
Tamer, it will return the favor.
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Endnotes
Go a little deeper. If you liked these insights, you'll love the book. Pick up a copy of Your Brain Is Always
Listening today.
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