Review: Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

I have an important book to recommend to you. Both Darling Hubby and I are reading it, often reading paragraphs aloud.

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen, M.D.

This book is one of the best explanations of often bewildering human behavior that I’ve read in a long time.

The softcover is very affordable, and it will be money well spent if it gives you some answers you may need.

Most books about behavior, habits, attitudes, etc. place the responsibility for often confusing actions, inability to change, depression, emotional problems, etc. squarely on the individual. This book explains there may be more reasons for an individual’s actions than free will or lack of discipline or the right upbringing.

I saw Dr. Amen on my local PBS stations one night. He was talking about treating people for depression, aggression, anger, etc.—all the things most of us view as emotional or behavioral problems. He’s done more than 100,000 SPECT scans of people’s brains. (SPECT = Single Photo Emission Computed Tomography.)

The results of those scans explain what is often unexplainable: why people do the things they do even though they want to change, or know it’s wrong or illegal or damaging to themselves and others.

You’ll find the case histories shared and the images of damaged brains compelling. The sad thing is that most of us go through life falling out of trees, getting hard bumps on the head, playing tackle football or soccer, or getting in car accidents without a thought to the trauma it can cause to our brains.

The good news is that you can do a lot to “repair” your brain. Change your brain, and you really can change your life.

This edition of  Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen, M.D. has been completely revised and updated. Neuropsychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen includes effective “brain prescriptions” that can help heal your brain and change your life.

Quell anxiety and panic: Use simple breathing techniques to immediately calm inner turmoil. Fight depression: Learn how to kill ANTs (automatic negative thoughts). Curb anger: Follow the Amen anti-anger diet and learn the nutrients that calm rage. Conquer impulsiveness and learn to focus: Develop total focus with the One-Page Miracle. Stop obsessive worrying: Follow the “get unstuck” writing exercise and learn other problem-solving exercises.

The book presents scientific evidence that your anxiety, depression, anger, obsessiveness, or impulsiveness could be related to how specific structures in your brain work.

Written in easily-accessible language, this is no heavy medical tome where you need a dictionary next to you to read it. Here’s a tip. Use Post-It notes to bookmark the passages you want to return to. A highlighter helps too.

Read it once. Read it again. Loan it to a friend. Tell others about it. This book offers the information we all need to understand some of the people in our lives.

Takeaway Truth

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen, M.D. is a stunning book. Do yourself a favor and read this book. It very well may change your life or help you understand someone you love.