The Healthy Brain Kit: Clinically Proven Tools to Boost Your Memory, Sharpen Your Mind, and Keep Your Brain Young [Cards]

Andrew Weil (Author), Gary Small (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2007

You exercise you body to keep it in peak performance--but what about your brain? At UCLA, Dr. Gary Small is proving that you can boost memory, sharpen concentration, enhance verbal fluency, and more--in less than two weeks. Now, with The Healthy Brain Kit, Dr. Small teams up with internationally renowned physician Dr. Andrew Weil to offer a complete program of tools and teachings for increasing your brain power immediately. This information-packed kit includes: - 2 CDs spotlighting the secrets of the brain and its remarkable abilities, plus Dr. Small's favorite" mental aerobics" exercises - 54-page study guide with breakthrough nutrition and lifestyle recommendations from Dr. Weil for keeping your brain healthy and mind sharp for life - 35 brain-training cards offering tricks, tips, and teasers to enhance brain fitness anytime, anywhere Whether you're concerned about memory loss, poor concentration, or enhancing your creativity, or you simply want to regain that cognitive edge of your youth, The Healthy Brain Kit gives you the most essential skills for keeping your brain in optimum shape today, and in the years ahead. Two world-renowned physicians and authors offer a complete kit of brain-boosting exercises and insights to improve memory, concentration, creativity, and more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Andrew Weil, one of America's best known advocates of alternative medicine and holistic healing, attended Harvard Medical School. He has worked for the National Institute of Mental Health and the Harvard Botanical Museum. He is the founder of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center and Associate Director of the Division of Social Perspectives in Medicine, University of Arizona. Weil's books include Spontaneous Healing and Natural Health and Eight Weeks to Optimum Health.

Product Details

• Cards: 52 pages
• Publisher: Sounds True, Incorporated (January 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591795303
• ISBN-13: 978-1591795308
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 9.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #560,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Review of "The Healthy Brain Kit", February 17, 2007

By 

Richard D. Tucker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Healthy Brain Kit: Clinically Proven Tools to Boost Your Memory, Sharpen Your Mind, and Keep Your Brain Young (Cards)

I recently ordered a number of books dealing with exercises to improve brain functioning. The most recent, and most expensive of the lot, was "The Healthy Brain Kit". A big attraction of that product was that it was "authored" by Dr. Andrew Weil, tne New Age guru of wholistic medicine, and Dr. Gary Small, Director of Aging at UCLA, and author of a number of books on research-based memory interventions. While the new kit has CD's, a workbook, and exercises, I really didn't find much in it that was different from previously published material, especially by Small, including "The Memory Prescription" which details his 14-day program at UCLA which includes nutrition, exercise, stress management, and brain stimulation exercises. If someone is just starting out with these materials, I guess the kit may be worthwhile, but if you already have previously published material, I'm not sure it's worth it.

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mental Aerobics, February 9, 2007

By 

Rebecca Johnson "The Rebecca Review" (Washington State) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Healthy Brain Kit: Clinically Proven Tools to Boost Your Memory, Sharpen Your Mind, and Keep Your Brain Young (Cards)

Dr. Andrew Weil introduces Dr. Gary Small's course in mental aerobics. He discusses the importance of an anti-inflammatory diet, why it might not be a good idea to sleep next to an alarm radio and why lifestyle strategies may have a great influence on brain health as we age.

Should you take up learning a new language or learn to play a musical instrument? What will a daily walk five times a week do for your brain? Dr. Andrew Weil explains the problems of oxidative stress, trauma, toxic chemicals and stress hormones and how they affect long-term aging.

Dr. Gary Small presents ideas for developing memory skills. His fun brainteasers will help you remember "to do" lists and names as well as giving you the empowering feeling when you remember things you used to forget. Through visualizations he guides you through a number of lessons to enhance memory and it makes remembering things a breeze.

Since the brain does have some regenerative capacity and we are capable of learning throughout the entire span of our lifetime, all it takes is some effort in the area of learning, reading or doing something challenging like learning dance steps.

2 CDs, a 52-page study guide booklet and a set of 35 brain-tuning cards to remind you to do the exercises presented. The cards include information on learning to relax, learning basic memory tricks to train the brain to remember facts and a few cards for advanced memory training.

~The Rebecca Review

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Half the book was great the other half useless., May 17, 2007

By 

Rebecca Confidential "90% Organic and Loving It" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Healthy Brain Kit: Clinically Proven Tools to Boost Your Memory, Sharpen Your Mind, and Keep Your Brain Young (Cards)

The first portion of the book was fabulous! I learned which supplements and foods support the brain. I learned about the way the brain works and what activities exercize it.
But the second portion- with the exercizes-- was really silly and very distracting.
For instance: Dr. Small instructs to visualize a very relaxing place. But every few seconds he talks with his own ideas about what is relaxing. As if the listener doesn't know what to visualize! I finally gave up when he went into hearing ocean waves... I am not soothed by ocean waves and in fact his chatter ruined the whole exercize for me. This guy seems to think that visualizing a relazing place is a new idea to the general public.
Also, the exercizes on the audio portion were downright silly! Really, really silly! Despite the ridiculous examples he wanted the listener to try I gave it a genuine effort. But his constant chatter just forced me out of the mood.
The exercizes in the book could work-- but the ANSWERS ARE ON THE SAME PAGE!! sorry about the caps but Come On! Who puts the answers to a puzzle on the same page as the puzzle itself?? I had to cover them, trying not to see them while I covered them, and then work from the book with half the space intended.
All in all this kit is Not of very good quality.

Final thought: It genuinely feels like this was slapped together and there was NO quality control.