Daniel G Amen - Change Your Brain, Change Your Body

OTHER BOOKS BY DR. DANIEL G. AMEN

Magnificent Mind at Any Age (Harmony Books, 2008, New York Times Bestseller)

The Brain in Love (Harmony Books, 2007)

Making a Good Brain Great (Harmony Books, 2005, Amazon Book of the Year)

Preventing Alzheimer's (with neurologist William R. Shankle, Putnam, 2004)

Healing Anxiety and Depression , with Lisa Routh, M.D. (Putnam, 2003)

New Skills for Frazzled Parents (MindWorks Press, 2003)

Healing the Hardware of the Soul (Free Press, 2002)

Images of Human Behavior: A Brain SPECT Atlas (MindWorks Press, 2003)

Healing ADD (Putnam, 2001)

How to Get Out of Your Own Way (MindWorks Press, 2000)

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life
(Three Rivers Press, 1999, New York Times bestseller)

ADD in Intimate Relationships (MindWorks Press, 1997)

Would You Give 2 Minutes a Day for a Lifetime of Love? (St. Martin's Press, 1996)

A Child's Guide to ADD (MindWorks Press, 1996)

A Teenager's Guide to ADD (written with Antony Amen and Sharon Johnson, MindWorks Press, 1995)

Mind Coach: Teaching Kids to Think Positive and Feel Good
(MindWorks Press, 1994)

The Most Important Thing in Life I Learned from a Penguin
(MindWorks Press, 1994)

Ten Steps to Building Values Within Children (MindWorks Press, 1994)

The Secrets of Successful Students (MindWorks Press, 1994)

Healing the Chaos Within (MindWorks Press, 1993)

For my grandfather, Daniel Ara, who has directed my heart
and
for Elias, my grandson, who provides continuing inspiration .

CONTENTS

PART ONE

1.

PART TWO

2.

3.

4.

5.

PART THREE

6.

7.

8.

9.

PART FOUR

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

See www.amenclinics.com/cybcyb for more information.

PART ONE

BRAIN BASICS

INTRODUCTION

THE MISSING LINK
BOOST YOUR BRAIN TO GET AND KEEP THE BODY YOU HAVE ALWAYS WANTED

Fifty percent of the brain is dedicated to vision.
How you look plays a large role in how you feel. Both matter
to your success at work and in your relationships.
It is not just vanity, it is about health.
To look and feel your best, you must first think about and
optimize your brain.

I live in Newport Beach, California. We have often been called the plastic society, because we have more plastic walking around our streets and beaches than almost anywhere else in the world. One of my friends says that God will never flood Newport Beach because all of the women will float. Most people throughout the world, not just in Newport Beach, care more about their faces, their boobs, their bellies, their butts, and their abs than they do their brains. But it is your brain that is the key to having the face, the breasts, the belly, the butt, the abs, and the overall health you have always wanted; and it is brain dysfunction, in large part, that ruins our bodies and causes premature aging.

It is your brain that decides to get you out of bed in the morning to exercise, to give you a stronger, leaner body, or to cause you to hit the snooze button and procrastinate your workout. It is your brain that pushes you away from the table telling you that you have had enough, or that gives you permission to have the second bowl of Rocky Road ice cream, making you look and feel like a blob. It is your brain that manages the stress in your life and relaxes you so that you look vibrant, or, when left unchecked, sends stress signals to the rest of your body and wrinkles your skin. And it is your brain that turns away cigarettes, too much caffeine, and alcohol, helping you look and feel healthy, or that gives you permission to smoke, to have that third cup of coffee, or to drink that third glass of wine, thus making every system in your body look and feel older.

Your brain is the command and control center of your body. If you want a better body, the first place to ALWAYS start is by having a better brain .

My interest in the brain-body connection started more than thirty years ago. As a college student, my thinking was influenced by the work of O. Carl Simonton, the oncologist who taught people to use visualization to boost their immune system in order to fight cancer. In medical school, I became trained in the use of medical hypnosis and began to see the powerful effect it can have on healing the body. I personally saw that it was helpful for treating headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, pain, weight loss, insomnia, a Parkinsonian tremor, and heart arrhythmias. I then became trained in a treatment technique called biofeedback and found that when I taught my patients to use their brains to warm their hands or breathe with their bellies, their whole body went into a relaxed state, which was helpful in decreasing stress, lowering blood pressure, and combating headaches.

THE MISSING LINK

It wasn't until 1991 that I truly started to understand the brain-body connection. That was the year I started the brain imaging work we do now at the Amen Clinics. We do a study called brain SPECT imaging that looks at blood flow and activity patterns. SPECT stands for single photon emission computed tomography. Unlike MRI and CAT scans, which show the anatomy of the brain, SPECT scans look at how the brain functions.

Looking at the brain has made an enormous difference in both my professional and personal life. At the time I ordered my first scan I had been a psychiatrist for nearly a decade, and I realized that I didn't have all the information I needed to provide the very best treatment for my patients. When I scanned my first patient I was excited to discover that the SPECT scans gave me critical information about brain function that I could not ascertain just by talking to the patient. The scans helped me and my colleagues be better healers.

Since 1991, the Amen Clinics have performed more than 55,000 brain scans, more than any organization in the world. Analyzing scans in the context of individual patient histories has helped us better diagnose and treat our patients for a wide variety of problems, such as ADD, depression, anxiety, anger, learning problems, memory problems, brain injuries, and addictions. In addition, I have discovered that when I improved my patients' brain functions, I also helped to improve their bodies and overall life.

I saw dramatic evidence of this a few years ago when I created a home study course for treating anxiety and depression. To test the course, we enlisted the help of ninety people to take part in the pilot program. The results were astounding. As I expected, most of the individuals experienced significant improvement in their levels of anxiety and depression. But that's not all. A number of the people told us that by following the twelve-week program, they also lost twenty to thirty pounds. This surprising result showed us that when people help their brains, they help their bodies, and they were finally able to lose the weight they had been trying to shed for years.

Our brain imaging work opened a new window into why people do what they do . It provided the missing link and allowed people to see what was going on in their brains, so they could do things to improve their brain and their bodies .

Take a close look at yourself in the mirror. If your skin seems dry, you reach for the moisturizer. Spot a pimple and you dab it with a bit of acne medication. Notice a few split ends and you call the hairdresser for a haircut. If you live in Newport Beach and you detect a few wrinkles, you call a doctor and make an appointment for Botox. Basically, whenever you see a problem with your body, you try to fix it yourself or get professional help to take care of it. But most people never even think about the health of their own brain, because they cannot see it. Many of us are walking around with brains that could use some serious help, but we don't know it, so we don't do anything to address the issue. This is at the heart, or should I say brain, of the problem. Let's look at an example of a healthy brain and a troubled brain.

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