Well it's day 10 of quarantine
an I'm home here in my kitchen.
My staff is also working from their homes
scattered around the city here
and we're doing what the CDC recommends,
we're staying indoors and when outside,
we're keeping social distance
in order to try and flatten the curve
of this coronavirus pandemic.
This is our new normal.
I know these are frightening times
and that is why I wanted to reach out to you
any way that I could.
Now, last time we dealt
with a pandemic of this magnitude was 1918.
Most of us weren't even close to being born
but now here we are and this state of uncertainty
mixed with isolation
is causing panic for many,
as they stay home and try to stay sane.
It's a high stress time
and it's so extremely important
to not fail to take care of ourselves
physically or mentally as well.
Now, I've been bringing you shows from home
for the last few days.
I feel that it's important to check in with you
and bring you as many tools as possible
to get through this.
Look, we all know that this is a contagious virus.
We all know that we need to maintain separation from others
so we don't spread this.
We know that we need to keep our hands washed
and not give it to each other through touch
or getting it off of surfaces
and getting it into our mucus membranes.
But we also need to pay attention
to how we're doing stress-wise,
mentally, emotionally, anxiety-wise,
depression-wise, panic-wise,
all the things that go into our mental and emotional health.
So toward that end,
I wanted to devote today
to talking about just those things.
And to help me in this conversation
is Dr. Daniel Amen.
Now, Dr. Amen is a psychiatrist
and founder of Amen Clinics
and he is really very well informed
about the things that we're talking about today
and he, like me, recognizes that so many of the things
that we think about as psychological disorders,
psychiatric disorders, really have a huge brain component
to them as well
and that we need to pay attention
to those aspects of our health and well being
and not just focus on the psychological aspects
of what we generally think about mental health to involve.
So let's talk about that.
So Dr. Amen, thank you for being here today.
I really want to hear from you on this.
Hi, Dr. Phil.
Such a pleasure to see you again
and what I want to tell people
is that mental hygiene is just as important
as washing your hands,
that literally we have to disinfect our thoughts,
I call it kill the ANTs,
the automatic negative thoughts
that are attacking us from so many different perspectives.
And it's a skill that you have to work on all the time.
Like you have to eat well over time
in order to be healthy,
you just can't do it once,
and mental hygiene is the same way.
Now, maintaining a good internal dialogue,
I always tell people that we don't react to reality,
we react to our perception of reality,
we react to what filter we run things through
as we perceive them.
And that means that we have to pay attention
to what we say to ourselves, correct?
Absolutely.
And you don't have to believe every thought you have.
Thoughts lie, they lie a lot
and it is often the thoughts we believe
that drive anxiety, panic and fear.
And so I've been telling my patients
and our audience,
you can have panic through a pandemic
or literally you can have peace during a pandemic
if you focus your mind on what's good
rather than on what's scary.