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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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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