Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted [Hardcover]

Daniel G. Amen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 16, 2010

THE KEY TO A BETTER BODY—in shape, energized, and youthful—is a healthy brain. Based on the latest medical research, as well as on Dr. Amen’s two decades of clinical practice at the re­nowned Amen Clinics, where Dr. Amen and his as­sociates pioneered the use of the most advanced brain imaging technology, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body shows you how to take the very best care of your brain.

With fifteen practical, easy-to-implement solutions involving nutritious foods, natural supplements and vitamins, positive-thinking habits, and, when neces­sary, highly targeted medications, Dr. Amen shows you how to:

* Reach and maintain your ideal weight
* Soothe and smooth your skin at any age
* Reduce the stress that can impair your immune system
* Sharpen your memory
* Increase willpower and eliminate the crav­ings that keep you from achieving your exercise and diet goals
* Enhance sexual desire and performance
* Lower your blood pressure without medication
* Avoid depression and elevate the enjoyment you take in life’s pleasures.

Whether you’re just coming to realize that it’s time to get your body into shape, or are already fit and want to take it to the next level, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body is all you need to start putting the power of the brain-body connection to work for you today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Come on, people, the health of our society is going the wrong way! We can do so much better. Dr. Amen’s groundbreaking work gives us a blueprint for a better brain and a better body. I highly recommend it.”
—BILL COSBY
 
“Daniel Amen continually demonstrates why he is truly one of the most original thinkers in medicine today. As he correctly points out in his newest book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, the brain is the integration center that ultimately controls not only the way we think and feel but also the way we look. More important, he provides the dietary advice that has been clinically demonstrated to improve brain function. If you want to optimize your life, this book is a must-read.”
—BARRY SEARS, Ph.D., author of The Zone
 
“Buy Change Your Brain, Change Your Body for yourself, the people you love, and your physi­cian. . . . This book can save your life, improve the quality of your life, and motivate you in helping those people that you love!”
—EARL R. HENSLIN, Psy.D., author of This Is Your Brain on Joy
 
“Change Your Brain, Change Your Body is a marvelous book. . . . Highly readable and hard to put down, it is packed with insight, information, and practical tools for the care of both adults and children.”
—MICHAEL GURIAN, author of The Wonder of Girls and The Wonder of Boys
 
“Dr. Amen has been my source for a better brain for a long time. I have been a student and a fan, but this is new. If a ‘brain boost’ can give me a better body, I say bring it on!”
—LEEZA GIBBONS
 
“In this entertaining and user-friendly book, Dr. Amen gives you a scientifically based, indi­vidualized plan for your own brain and body chemistry, helping you optimize every aspect of your health and well-being. No side effects—only side benefits!”
—HYLA CASS, M.D., coauthor of 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health
 
“Change Your Brain, Change Your Body is an essential book for anyone trying to improve their body and their health. By blending cutting-edge research with his wealth of clinical experience, Dr. Amen has presented this material in a way that fully integrates what we know about the connection between the brain and body. Dr. Amen’s unique perspective is a tremendous gift for so many seeking out how to achieve a better state of mind and health.”
—ANDREW NEWBERG, M.D., noted brain imaging researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and coauthor of How God Changes Your Brain

About the Author

DANIEL G. AMEN, M.D., is a clinical neuroscien­tist, psychiatrist, and brain imaging expert who heads the world-renowned Amen Clinics. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and has won several writing and re­search awards. He has published twenty-four books, numerous professional and popular articles, and a number of audio and video programs. His books in­clude Preventing Alzheimer’s, Healing Anxiety and Depression, Healing the Hardware of the Soul, Healing ADD, Making a Good Brain Great, Sex on the Brain, and the New York Times bestsellers Change Your Brain, Change Your Life and Magnificent Mind at Any Age. He is an internationally recognized keynote speaker and the star of several very popular public television specials, including Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harmony Books; 1st edition (February 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307463575
• ISBN-13: 978-0307463579
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (121 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #74 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Personal Health > Stress > Stress Management

More About the Author

Dr. Amen is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost experts on applying brain imaging science to clinical psychiatric practice. He is a board certified child and adult psychiatrist and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is the medical director of Amen Clinics, Inc. in Newport Beach and Fairfield, California, Bellevue, Washington, and Reston, Virginia. Amen Clinics have the world's largest database of functional brain scans relating, totaling more than 60,000 scans. The clinics have seen patients from 90 countries.

Dr. Amen is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. He has presented his work around the world. He is widely regarded as a gifted teacher, taking complex concepts in neuropsychiatry and imaging and making them easily accessible to other professionals.

Dr. Amen is the lead researcher on the world's largest brain imaging/brain rehabilitation study on professional football players, which not only demonstrated significant brain damage in a high percentage of retired players, but also the possibility for rehabilitation in many with the principles that underlie his work.

Dr. Amen is the author of 40 professional articles, the co-author of the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry's chapter on Functional Imaging in Clinical Practice, 28 books, including three New York Times bestsellers: Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, Magnificent Mind At Any Age, and Change Your Brain, Change Your Body. He is also the author of Healing ADD, Making A Good Brain Great, Healing the Hardware of the Soul, and co-author of Unchain Your Brain, Healing Anxiety and Depression and Preventing Alzheimer's.

In 2011, Random House will release his latest book, The Amen Solution: Brain Healthy Ways to Lose Weight and Keep It Off. In late 2011, Random House will also release Dr. Amen's Upcoming book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Age (tentative title).

Dr. Amen is the producer and star of 5 highly popular shows about the brain, which have raised more than 32 million dollars for public television.

A small sample of the organizations Dr. Amen has spoken for include: the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), Harvard's Learning and the Brain Conference, The Million Dollar Roundtable, Retired NFL Players Summit, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Ohio and Wyoming. Dr. Amen's work has been featured in Newsweek, Parade Magazine, New York Times Magazine, Men's Health, and Cosmopolitan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

197 of 204 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good info with unimportant info, March 21, 2010

By 

leafreader "leafreader" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted (Hardcover)

The book is not bad. There are very interesting information on brain types.

The big problem with the book is frankly a lack of focus. You may very well come away with an OMG-now-what feeling. That's because the author attempt to cover many possibilities that contribute to the same problem. Let's say you suffer from anxiety, by the end of the book, you will have been given 50 different things that could have contributed to you experiencing anxiety - and when you try to summarize all those "solutions" it tends to lead you to basic good commons sense: eat well, exercise, don't stress. Great! Now I know how to live.

That is not to say that book doesn't give good advice or that it doesn't have added information. But for 80% of the book, you would have already known the common sense information if you paid any remote attention to the usual batch of health and fitness related articles and magazines.

The big draw for me to purchase this book is to learn about the different types of brains that Dr. Amen has identified. And how each can be best managed via supplements? I focused in on supplements because I already have fairly good regime when it comes to food and exercise. He does provide the info I seek, but I had to shuffle through different parts of the book to piece the information together. The author did not make that easy. At the end of it, I came up with a one-page of summary from all those scattered writings. I'm OK with it but it is clearly not the best. It also indicate the value of your money, assuming you had some common sense about diets already.

The point is, if you don't know a lot of basic information to begin with regarding good eating and brain habits, then this book will be very valuable. If you know the basics already, you will find information that you've not seen before but it takes some work to extract out the info and it puts to question the real value you are getting.

447 of 486 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Just an infomercial!, April 6, 2010

By 

Raskolnikov "Raskol" (Fly-over country) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted (Kindle Edition)

If you are looking for something new or scientific, skip this one. The book is short on actual science, uses simplistic anecdotes, but more importantly is nothing more than a written infomercial for Dr. Amens to try to sell you his vitamins and supplements. Once you identify the "type" of overeater you are, the book recommends supplements to help you "change your brain" all of which are available on the Amens web site for outrageous prices. The book is one long, giant infomercial. You can get all of the same informaiton for free on the website, and get instantaneous "personalized" results from the "test" there, along with recommendations of which overpriced supplements you should buy from the web site. Nothing new in this book, so save your money. Just go get the pitch from the free web site, and decide whether to fork out hundreds of dollars for supplements there. You won't need this book to make that decision. Just Google "Amen clinics".

126 of 135 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Specious SPECT, May 14, 2010

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D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted (Hardcover)

Dr Amen is a board certified psychiatrist and is well-informed. He knows what he is talking about. He has read the journals and mastered the textbooks. He has published work in peer-reviewed journals cited in PubMed. The treatments he suggests in this book are only mildly unorthodox and some of them, such as hypnosis, meditation, relaxation and eye movement desensitization have been shown to be effective and are overly neglected by mainstream medicine. Some of them, such as samE, St John's wort, glycine and omega-3 fatty acids are on the cusp of scientific respectability. "Dr.Amen's Brain and Memory Recovery Solution" and "Dr. Amen's Craving Solution" are perhaps less likely to receive FDA approval, but maybe his application is pending.
His diet suggestions are for complex carbohydrates and frequent meals. He is against the Atkins diet. He recommends exercise but avoidance of cycling and skate boarding (because you might bang your head).
I think his appeal is not so much because of the treatments he offers but because of the explanations he offers. It can be frustrating for sufferers from severe anxiety or depression to learn that all their blood chemistry and X-rays are perfectly normal. Amen gives the public an organic reason for why they feel mentally bad. Not all of his reasons are totally spurious. Variations in cortisol really can affect feelings of well being. Epinephrine really can produce feelings of anxiety. Thyroid abnormalities really can cause mental symptoms.
There is more of a problem with his use of SPECT, which involves injecting a radioactive substance. The SPECT scan has a scientific basis and some valid medical uses. The two major imaging methods for looking at the brain in clinical use are the CAT scan and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. These can show tumors, or bleeding, or parts of the brain that have become softened or liquefied.
Positron emitting tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (f MRI), regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), and the kind of rCBF called single photon emitting computerized tomography (SPECT) can show up localizations of disordered brain function that were not apparent from CAT or MRI. For example, decreased metabolism has been found in frontal areas with schizophrenia, and in parietal brain areas with dementia. Dr. Abel claims to be able to use SPECT scan to diagnose a variety of emotional conditions. However the Brain Imaging Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine has offered Dr. Amen an opportunity to test some of his claims and he has refused, according to a report in the American Journal of Psychiatry (May, 2010, volume 167, page 598).