The Trauma You Can't Think Away (Because It Lives in Your Body) with Brittany Snow

The Trauma You Can't Think Away (Because It Lives in Your Body) with Brittany Snow

What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This conversation between psychiatrist Dr Daniel Amen and actress Brittany Snow gives a very honest look at how trauma, anxiety, and coping behaviours can quietly run the show – even years into recovery. Brittany talks openly about growing up as a child actor, living with a "very sensitive and anxious" mind, and using an eating disorder to quiet her racing thoughts.

As she puts it, "My eating disorder really stemmed from just getting my brain to stop." Later, that same drive for relief shows up in sleep medication and an evening glass of wine she often doesn’t even finish – she just wants the sense of a reward.

Dr Amen walks her through why trauma "comes and stays" in the brain and body, how hypervigilance can wreck sleep, and why he sees alcohol and sedatives as short-term silencers that keep the deeper wounds untouched. He reassures her that, despite years of stress and substance use, "you have a stunningly beautiful brain" and emphasises that "you are not stuck with the brain you have.

You can make it better." The talk is packed with practical tools: EMDR targeted at a written life timeline of "awesome" and "awful" events, writing down and challenging 30 of her worst "ANTs" (automatic negative thoughts), changing evening worry habits, and learning specific breathing techniques. Hormones come into it too, with a frank discussion of perimenopause, progesterone, and why so many women in their late 30s and 40s suddenly can’t sleep and start leaning on wine, Xanax, or Ambien.

If you’re juggling anxiety, sleep issues, old trauma and a tricky relationship with alcohol, this episode offers science, structure, and some much‑needed humour – including Brittany’s loud inner critic, "Frank", who really needs that U‑Haul. Which of your own "Franks" could do with being shown the door?