The Secrets to Happier Sex w/ Dr. Amen

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You are powerful by what you focus on with other people. Now ultimately we teach people how to treat us by what we tolerate, but also by what we notice. And if you notice what you like more than what you don't, you're gonna have more sex. You're gonna have more love.

You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. You've probably heard that the brain is the largest sex organ in your body, right? But can you really hack your brain for happiness or for better sex? Psychiatrist and best selling author, Dr. Daniel Amen has amassed the world's largest database of brain scans and and studies that reveal something fascinating. Using neuroscience based habits, we have the power to radically improve our mental health, our mood and yes, our sex lives. Dr. Amen's latest book is yous Happier. And on this episode he reveals the lies of happiness. The stress hormones impeding your sex hormones, how to focus on, you know, mini micro moments of happiness and strategies for protecting yourself from the noise in your head. You know, those negative thoughts, they just don't serve us. He also explains why happy people tend to live longer, have better relationships, be more successful in their careers, and, let's face it, have way hotter sex. Listen now to learn how to master your mind and reap all the sexy rewards. All right, Intentions with Emily for each episode. Join me in setting intention for the episode. I do it. I encourage you to do it. So my intention is to simply share with you some of the secrets of the brain. God, I've learned a lot learning about my brain and how you can shift your thinking to lead to happier, healthier relationships. Please rate and review Sex With Emily wherever you listen to the show. My new article, 15 Types of Sexuality and attraction to help you understand your desire Style, is up@sexwithemily.com and check out my YouTube channel. For more sex tips and advice, call my hotline 559-TALK SEX or 559-825-5739. You can also leave me a question or message me at sex with emily.com askemily oh, just include your name, your age, where you live, and how you listen to the show. And it's cool to change your name if you want to remain anonymous.

Doctor Amen. I love your new book. I can't believe how many books you just whipped out during COVID which is very impressive. This is your 42nd book. I think you've been on for all three books. But you happier the seven neuroscience secrets of feeling good based on your brain type. I devoured this book and I love that you break down your brain types in this book. And God, how can we get happier? Daniel, we need to get happier. What do we do?

Well, we do and there's a science to it. And it starts by knowing happiness is a moral obligation because of how you impact other people. And when I was growing up in the San Fernando Valley and going to Catholic school, that idea was nowhere to be found that seeking happiness is good. But if you ask anyone who was raised by an unhappy mother or married to an unhappy spouse whether or not happiness is an ethical issue, I guarantee you the answer will be yes. And there are all sorts of lies of happiness, like I need more, that more will make me happy, and more actually often makes you unhappy. And so there are lots and lots of books on happiness, but none of them really talk about the brain. And because your brain is the largest sex organ in the body and it's the organ of happiness. And when your brain is healthy you tend to be much happier. And I also discovered that one thing will not make everybody happy, that it really needs to be geared to your brain and the type of brain you have. So some people have a balanced brain and most anything will make them happy. Other people are spontaneous, they have sleepy frontal lobes and they need novelty, they need unpredictability, they need excitement, and they love surprises. And if you're married to someone who has the persistent brain type, going to fight a lot because that person needs routine and they don't like surprises. And if you hurt their feelings, they're going to think about it for maybe 15 years. And so it's critical to know your type and then to ask yourself every day, am I doing something that makes me uniquely happy? And I have this great strategy in the book about looking for the micro moments of happiness. What's the smallest thing that happened today that made me happy? Like just seeing your face because we're friends, that made me happy. And if I can focus on that rather than the world watch war or the pandemic or whatever awful thing is happening, I'm going to be so much happier. Where you bring your attention always determines how you feel. So I wrote these seven neuroscience secrets. So the first one is brain type. The second one is get your brain healthy. And I tried to make it so simple, but yet actionable.

I'm curious if the general population skews towards any brain type. Are there more spontaneous brains than persistent brains? Is it just because I'm in LA that I think everyone's add, like, that can't be true, you know, or is it like, what have you found?

No, it's actually fairly evenly distributed. And for some people, the cautious brain type, for example, this pandemic was so hard for them. They, like, didn't leave their house for the sensitive type. They got depressed because they need connection. The spontaneous type were on the beach in Miami, Florida. It's like, come on, bring it on. The persistent type were angry and it looped for them. It's like they couldn't stop thinking about it. Now some people are going, oh, I have all four of those. Well, that's type eight. There's actually 16 brain types because you can have more than one type. So for example, the children and grandchildren of alcoholics, there's 30 million of them in the United States. They tend to have type 6, where they have elements of being spontaneous and also persistent. And so knowing that, it's like, oh, here are the supplements that can help me balance my brain. And here are some of the strategies. But I want people not to go, oh well, because I don't jump out of airplanes, then I can't be happy. No. For the cautious type and the balanced type that makes them miserable. To think that. And so you don't have to do what society says will make you happy. I really want people to look inside themselves and then I want them to know the brain type of their partner. Because strategy number six is notice what you like about other people more than what you don't. That is giving away happiness. That one of the big secrets to happiness is you have to find it and then you have to give it away. Because when you give it away, you're creating your own happy support group, making it likely your relationship is going to be better. And I know you've met my wife Tana, and I absolutely know how to make her yell at me. And I just choose not to because it makes me miserable. And I notice what I like way more than what I don't like and so I get more of what I like.

Can you explain more about that though? About giving it away? You have to give it away. What you mean by that?

Well, when you give happiness away by noticing what you like, you're creating a happiness bridge. And then you just elevate the room, you elevate the space you're in. And one of my favorite techniques in the book is give your mind a name. I love this technique so much. So you can separate from the chatter in your head. And so many people's minds are negative. And I talked to one of my patients yesterday and she named her mind Pam. Because Pam is the 60 year old woman who's always sending her food back at the restaurant or asking to speak to the manager or complaining loudly. And she goes, I just noticed that Pam shows up way too much in my head. And so now that I've named her, I can dismiss her or I can go, no, no, I'm not listening to you today. And so as she gets happier and then notices what she likes about other people in her life, they get happier as well. So you're just creating this cool.

Happiness ambiance.

What I like about this thing, about noticing what you do like and what you don't. So many of us have a negativity bias in our brain. I do. My brain goes negative. How this impacts relationships is thinking about even trying for a week. And I've told people to do this before listeners, I've suggested that you just for a week, you just try to even a day. The things that you Appreciate the second it goes to a negative. What do you love about your partner? What do you like about your partner? And it's actually going to shift. It will shift. They're going to feel it, and then you're going to get that back to you. So it's kind of what we're talking about is a rewiring, which is a very specific thing if you're going to. Hopefully we will take a lot away from this show, but I hope maybe they could just pick one or two things they could start today if they're in a relationship and been feeling like, oh, God, my partner can't do anything right.

Well, I have a great story. I was seeing this teenage girl. She tried to kill herself. And I saw her initially two or three times a week. And over a year, she just got so much better. And I was feeling really good about the relationship until one day she comes into my office. She's crying, she's screaming, she's gonna run away. She hates her mother. And you've seen my office. So you know, I collect penguins. And right in the middle of the rant, she goes, and Dr. Amon White is a grown man. Collect penguins. And I chuckled because I'm like, I've been seeing you for a year, you're just now noticing the penguins. And I told her why I collect penguins, which is when My oldest was 7, which was 37 years ago. I took them to a place called Sea Life park in Hawaii, where they had sea animal shows like seaworld, and took them to the whale show and the dolphin show and the sea lion show. At the end of the day, I took him to the penguin show. Penguin's name was Fat Freddy. And Freddy was so cool. He jumped off a diving board, bowled with his nose, countered with his flipper. And at the end of the show, the trainer asked Freddy to go get something, and he went and got it and brought it right back. And in my mind, I went, damn. I asked this kid to get something for me, and he wants to have a decent discussion for like 30 minutes, and then he doesn't want to do it. And I knew my son was smarter than the penguin. And so I went up to the trainer afterwards and I said, how did you get Freddie to do all these really great things? And she said, unlike parents, whenever Freddy does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him, I give him a hug and I give him a fish. And the light went on in my head the that I wasn't paying attention to the good things he was doing. I was only focused on what was wrong. And as I'm telling my patient this story, this teenage girl, and she had the persistent brain type, which means no matter what I said, she'd oppose me. And I'm like, oh, I just got this really crazy idea and you probably don't want to hear it, so you have to set it up like that. Because then she had to hear it. And she's like, well, what? Of course I want to hear it. I said, well, I have this really crazy idea that we can shape the behavior of your mother. She goes, what do you mean? I said, whenever she's inappropriate with you, whenever she's angry with you, I want you to take a breath and not react.

And her eyes got really big.

But when she's halfway decent, kind, loving, thoughtful, I want you to give her a hug and tell her you love her. And she got it immediately. We're going to do the penguin story with mom. And she goes, this is going to be really hard, but I'm going to try it. And she texted me that night. She said, I'm not going to run away. We already had a good interaction. And two weeks later she came back and she said, we had the best two weeks that we've ever had. And I went, I just taught you about power. You are powerful by what you focus on with other people. Now, ultimately, we teach people how to treat us by what we tolerate, but also by what we notice. And if you notice what you like more than what you don't, you're going to have more sex. You're going to have more love.

We're going to take a quick break, but stick around. After word from our sponsors, we're going to be hearing more about how brain health can help your sex life.

How does understanding our partner's brain types and our own face types going to help us with our sex life?

Well, if you're the cautious type, you really need things to be quiet and settled and peaceful in order for you to be able to open up to someone. Now, if they're spontaneous and you're routine oriented, if you love them, you need to get outside of your comfort zone a little bit because the persistent, I mean, it's like we have sex on Tuesday nights and Sunday mornings and that's when you have sex. And if you're married to another routine oriented person and they're okay with that, that's awesome. But if you're married to a spontaneous person or you're with a spontaneous person, that will just make them crazy. And so taking A little bit of serotonin mood support to calm your brain down so that you can just be more open to possibilities. Right? Because love is not about getting what we want. It's about giving what our partner needs. And knowing their type helps you connect better and it gives you more power to make it better. Right. I mean, it's just easy if you don't think about it, to make it worse. But if you want to make it better, know your type and what makes you happy and share it and have them know their type and what makes them happy and share it without judgment.

And you make it very easy to identify. In your book, people will recognize themselves and recognize their partner. Is there another easy way for them to figure it out, their brain type? I guess the book.

Well, there's a questionnaire online, it's free brainhealthassessment.com that'll tell them which of the 16 types they are. And over time, as you work on your brain and mental health, like growing up, I was totally a 5. I was cautious, anxious, bit my fingernails till they bled, was socially not awkward, but anxious. And now I'm pretty much a one that a lot of hard work has helped to balance my brain. And nobody cares about their brain, right? I mean, when you saw your brain, it was like, oh, I need to make this better. Which you did.

You did make my brain better. And we're going to do a separate episode on this because I have so much to share with you about what I've been through working with Dr. Amen the last two years. But I really wanted to bring everyone in so they could kind of identify their brain type. Start the journey with me, and then we'll come back and do a show together about this. I have to tell you, Dr. Amen, before I do anything. Now I'm able to, for the first time, think, is this good for my brain? Is it bad for my brain? And I know that doing something now for my brain, that feels good, it's going to feel good later. But like drinking alcohol, having lots of sugar, not working out, or not getting enough sleep. I mean, I talk about my brain now. I never used to talk about my brain. I would talk about my body or I talk about my mind, but it is my brain. I feel like you helped me put my brain on the map. So what I was thinking about this book is how it relates to people's sex life, is we've been getting so many questions lately. I mean, all the time. But they skew over the years. But lately there's so many people, Dr. Amen. Who can't focus enough to get turned on in the bedroom. I don't know if it's like blood flow or they're drinking too much, they numb out in the bedroom. What can the neuroscience and identifying our brain types, how can it help with our sexual arousal responses? How can we know what's going to get us in the mood for sex and what's going to turn turns on and off? Like what can this help us with? Help people be like, I gotta get out of my head and into my body.

So part of it depends on your type. But the chronic stress that we've been under for the last couple of years, stress hormones steal the building blocks for sex hormones. And so having a stress management practice, like if you watch the news in this morning, you're 27% less happier in the afternoon. And so these little habits that help us focus. Plus so many people put sex at their low energy point, like when they're going to bed. And I think you need to talk to your partner about when's your best energy and focus. And too many people save that for work. But if your sex life is not working, you may lose half of your net worth. And so having a great relationship pays itself over and over again. So time of day, what's your blood sugar like? Because if your blood sugar is low, you're not going to be able to to focus. If you have a high ant population, automatic negative thoughts. If you can't manage your mind, well, that stress will steal your sex hormones. And just getting your hormones balanced is so critical to brain health. You know, I actually call them miracle grow for your brain. And testosterone in large part because of all the toxins we put on our bodies, they're at epidemic low levels, I mean horrifyingly low levels for a lot of teenage boys and young adult men and women. And you're like, why is your testosterone so low? But if you think of all the lotions and potions and sunscreen that parents have, you know, bathe children in, not only is their vitamin D level low, but their testosterone is low as well.

So it's all those things we're not saying like just get more testosterone or get more sleep or take this supplement. It's such a multi pronged approach. There's so many things to look at. You say that you can become 20% happier in 30 days. If you follow the advice in the book, which I believe because I already feel happier for reading it because I've been talking about it, I'm Hearing with my family on a little trip and I've been talking to everyone about it. But for someone who's listening and wants to become happier, what are some top tips that you give them to achieve that?

Right now if people preorder the book or order the book@you happier.com all the way up I think till the end of March, we'll give them the 30 day happiness challenge. So it's a course at Amen University. 32,000 people signed up. The ones that finished it, 30% happier after 30 days. Plus their energy was 30% better and their memory was better. So it's putting these little tiny habits in your life and why we did it over 30 days is it takes a while to get these 7 secret 7 questions into your life. Like I tell the penguin story and in the 30 day challenge. Cause some people, they get a book and they put it down and they may never read it. And this simple challenge, there's also a workbook that goes with it. Tana wrote a new cookbook for you. Happier. And my favorite gift if people pre order or order the book is a bottle of happy saffron. Because I love Happy saffron. It's a supplement, I call it created saffron, zinc and curcumin that have been shown to be very effective in enhancing happiness and mood. Plus it's pro sexual rather than most antidepressants which sort of decrease sexual function.

I take it every day. He is not a sponsor but I do take heavy saffron every, every single day. It's part of my supplement plan. And I think also in the book just the understanding your brain health, how it works, recognizing your thought patterns. So many of us just don't understand that our thoughts are not the truth. We don't have to believe every thought. We think that you can kill the automatic negative thoughts. Like if one thing doesn't resonate with you, you're going to find something that's going to click for you. There will be a light bulb that goes on that's going to change it. I love that you say that. You don't have to believe every stupid thought you have. I imagine this would help people a lot in romantic relationships too.

Well, the ants, the automatic negative thoughts. If you have ants and your partner has ants, they mate and they create super ants and nobody's having sex because the relationship is infested. And so learning how to not believe everything you think. And the exercise is super simple. Whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, write down what you're thinking and then just ask yourself if it's true. And I talk about different kinds of ants, like labeling ants or mind reading, fortune telling. I mean, really getting control of your mind. But, you know, there are biological strategies. Know your brain type, get your brain healthy, supplement your brain, only love food that loves you back. So that's all in biological strategies. Strategies. Then there's psychological strategies, right? Master your mind and gain psychological distance from the noise in your head. Right? Being able to just step back and watch the chatter rather than have to be the chatter. You don't want to be the chatter. You want to just be curious. Because, you know, thoughts come from all sorts of places. They come from the news, they come from the voice of your mother or of your father. They're actually written into your genetic code through this interesting phenomena called epigenetics. They come from your friends, they come from the new, you know, society, social media. And I have so many stupid thoughts. And just because I have a stupid thought, it's like, well, I don't have to say that, please don't say that. And I don't even have to believe it. It's when you start believing the nonsense and the chatter in your head, you suffer. And I was 28 years old when I first learned I didn't have to believe every stupid thing I thought. And I'm like, really? That it's just sort of made up nonsense in my head. I don't have to. It's not the thoughts you have that make you suffer, it's the thoughts you attach to that make you suffer. So learning how to detach, one of my best compliments. Someone called me the Buddha of mental health, which I thought was so fun and except I totally am attached to the outcome. Right, Buddhists, you're not attached to the outcome. I want. I want you to be better. And I'm not happy when you're not better. Right. So maybe that's not a good analogy anyways.

Not attaching to the thoughts you have, like I'm a fool or I'm a failure and I'm like, you know, most of the time I'm not a fool and most of the time I'm not a failure, and that's just not helpful.

I feel like you already are passionate about it and you can tell and it comes through in everything you do. And you have helped so many people, including myself. The boot analogy with attachment was always challenging for me. We have one question that came from Instagram, we got several, but I picked this one real Quick, that I wanted you to help me answer. This came from Instagram. Does frequent sexual activity boost brain power or assist with your brain health in any way?

Now, it would depend on why you're having frequent sexual activity. So we would think, think a sex worker. It's probably not boosting brain function and happiness, probably chronic stress.

I think in a loving relationship where your libidos are matched, then I think it's a great thing for dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin and endorphins. It can just be so helpful. There's one, one study that having an orgasm decreased migraine frequency 50%. So when she says, not tonight, honey, I have a headache, go, I can help.

So I think it depends on a lot of different factors, but touch and eye contact.

So important to the human brain.

Well, this book really encourages people to do that. You let me ask you the cookie questions too, that I ask all my guests. Dr. Daniel Amen. What is your biggest turn on my wife?

Always. Biggest turn off someone being cruel.

What makes good sex? Connection and thoughtfulness something you would tell your younger self about sex and relationships.

It's going to be okay. Be patient. But when you pick a partner, be selfish. Make sure that it fits. Because what I've seen 40 years now being a psychiatrist is if it fits, it's amazing. If it doesn't fit, it's hell.

What's the number one thing you wish everyone knew about sex?

Your brain is the biggest sex organ in your body. Take care of that and you will have more sex.

Happier brain really is a path to happier sex, isn't it?

No forethought equals no foreplay.

I love it. Thank you so much, Dr. Amen, for being here. How can people find you? What are the steps they should take to get involved with you happier?

So they can go to you happier.com and there's all sorts of free gifts. We'll tell them about it there. They can learn about amen clinics@ AmenClinics.com or follow me on TikTok or Instagram.

Thank you for all the work you do. It's wonderful to see you.

Wonderful to see you, Emily. Thank you.

That's it for today's episode. See you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to, like, subscribe and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Facebook and Twitter. SexWithemily. Oh, I've been told I give really good email, so sign up@sexwithemily.com and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating or relationships, call my hotline 559-talk-SEX. That's 559-825-5739 or go to sexwithemily.com.

Special thanks to Acast for powering the Sex with Emily podcast. Was it good for you? Email me feedbackexwithemily.com.

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