Wendy Suzuki - Healthy Brain, Happy Life: A Personal Program to Activate Your Brain and Do Everything Better

I thank my coauthor Billie Fitzpatrick for her generosity, guidance, support, and superb writing skills. I could not have written this book without her amazing ability to find the heart of the story.

To Yfat Reiss Gendell, the very best book agent I could have ever asked for. I am so grateful for your knowledge, skill, and savvy regarding all things publishing. Its been a privilege to work with you.

I thank Carrie Thornton for her superb editorial skills. Every suggestion you made helped bring the book into better focus.

I thank and acknowledge my wonderful network of friends, my students, and my teachers who have supported me and inspired me throughout this process.

And I thank spirit for showing me my path of service.

WENDY SUZUKI, PhD, runs an interactive research lab at New York University, where her work has been recognized with numerous awards including the prestigious Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences. Her research has focused on understanding the patterns of brain activity underlying long-term memory and, more recently, how aerobic exercise might improve our learning, memory, and cognitive abilities. She is a two-time TEDx speaker and is regularly interviewed on television and in print about her work on the effects of exercise on brain function. She lectures nationally and internationally on her research and serves as a reviewer for many of the top neuroscience journals. She lives in New York City.

www.suzukilab.com

BILLIE FITZPATRICK has coauthored numerous books, including several New York Times bestsellers. She specializes in mind-body health, neuroscience, nutrition, and diet and fitness.

www.billiefitzpatrick.com

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HOW A GEEKY GIRL
FELL IN LOVE WITH THE BRAIN:
The Science of Neuroplasticity and Enrichment

L ong before I wanted to be a scientist, I dreamed of being a Broadway star. My father, an electrical engineer and one of the most diehard Broadway fans you will ever meet, took us to every traveling Broadway production that came to San Francisco, just an hour away from my hometown of Sunnyvale, California. I saw Yul Brynner (when he was about eighty-five) in The King and I , Rex Harrison (when he was about ninety-eight) in My Fair Lady , and Richard Burton (kind of old, but not ancient) in Camelot . I spent my childhood watching Shirley Temple movies and all the classic Hollywood musicals. My dad took my brother and me to see The Sound of Music when it was released in the theater each year. We must have seen it twenty times. I fancied myself as a magical blend of Julie Andrews, Shirley Jones, and Shirley Temple, and in my daydreams, I would spontaneously break into song and, in my adorable, impossibly plucky way, save the day and get the guyall in one fell swoop.

But despite my fathers love of all things Broadway, I was clearly expected to do something serious with my life. As a third-generation Japanese American with a grandfather who had come to the United States in 1910 and founded the largest Japanese-language school on the west coast, my family had high expectations for all of their children. Not that they ever verbalized these high standardsthey never had to. It was simply understood that I should work hard at school and pursue a serious career that they could be proud of. And by serious, I knew I had only three choices: I could become a doctor, a lawyer, or something academicthe more impressive sounding the better. I didnt fight these expectations; they made sense to me.

Quite early, in the sixth grade at Ortega Middle School in fact, I began a lifelong pursuit of science. My science teacher that year, Mr. Turner, taught us about the bones of the human body, testing us by having us put one hand into a dark box to identify a bone by touch. I loved it! No squirming for meI was thrilled by the dare. I became even more excited when I got to do my first pig and frog dissections, and despite the revolting odor, I knew I had to know more. How did all those little organs fit so compactly and beautifully into that little pig body? How did they all work together so seamlessly? If this is what it looked like inside a pig, what might the inside of a human look like? The process of biological dissection captured my imagination from the first moment I got that choking whiff of formaldehyde.

The emerging scientist in me was also fascinated with that most coveted of candy concoctions when I was growing up: Pop Rocks. While other kids in my class were satisfied by the mouth-feel of explosions on their tongues, I wanted to understand what triggered these bursts and what wild sensory/chemical experiences you could have in your mouth by combining them with other things, like fizzy seltzer water, hot tea, or ice water. Unfortunately, Mom deemed these experiments a choking hazard and they quickly ended.

My high school math teacher, Mr. Travoli, lovingly guided me through the beauty and logic of A.P. trigonometry. I loved the elegance of math equations, which when done correctly could unlock the keys to a pristine world, balanced on either side of an equal sign. I already had a feeling that understanding math was a key to what I wanted to do (even though I had no idea what that was in high school), and I worked hard to get the best marks in class. In his lilting Italian accent, Mr. Travoli told us over and over again that we advanced-placement students were the best of the best. I took this as both an encouragement to excel and a solemn responsibility to use my math skills to their fullest potential. I was a serious and earnest kid, on my way to becoming an even more serious teenager.

By this time, the only outlet for my inner Broadway passion was going to the movies. I got my parents to agree to let me see Saturday Night Fever on my own by telling them it was a musical and conveniently failed to mention the R rating (I was only twelve). They were not pleased when they realized what I had seen. Later, I was obsessed with movies like Dirty Dancing , and imagined myself effortlessly stealing the show in Johnny Castles arms despite the fact that I hadnt taken a single dance lesson since my ballet and tap days in grade school.

By high school, the balance had decidedly shifted. The shining lights of Broadway had dimmed, and I was a steadfast, committed, and driven student, completely at home in a life of total science geekdom. I can see an image of myself in high school: shoulders hunched, serious faced, and carrying a tower of heavy books, as I made my way through the hallways trying not to attract any attention. Yes, I still relived my Broadway fantasies every time I saw one of my favorite musicals on television, but by then those dreams were kept locked in the den at home and studious geek girl had taken over my life. I was entirely immersed in academics, getting straight As and getting into a top college. I had no time left over to even think about my whimsical interests, never mind letting them coexist alongside my devotion to science and math.