Customer Reviews

Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain's Potential

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mozart's Brain and The Fighter Pilot is an interesting book about how the brain works, which parts of the brain control different activities, and what exercises you might conduct to exercise your brain. Unfortunately, the writing straddles between the author's academic background and what might be interesting to the average reader. The end result is a book that seems like random, rambling recollections and anecdoates of a smart man, but lazily written. I was never sure if his assertions were backed by facts or if they were just speculation on his part.

Examples of this mixed style:
- Very prescriptive statements: "you should play chess if you want to keep a sharp mind"; "the only way to..."; and a proclivity for great books as being the only books worth reading
- The exercises he suggested are rarely validated by experimental proof.
- Offers specifics where none are needed - "If you are over 35 and you pull your skin back towards your face you will look 10 years younger."

As a last note, I felt the title was misleading. I was looking for more detailed anecdotes about how various types of people's brains worked. The example of Mozart, however, barely covered two pages.

Enjoyable, entertaining, but also frustrating.

Dr. Restak provides 28 ideas in 28 chapters for maintaining an alert mind. Many of the ideas are simply motherhood and apple pie recommendations - reduce stress, concentrate, exercise, etc. And while there are some interesting insights on how the brain works, based on PET scans and recent research, Dr. Restak's recommendations are anecdotal and based on personal experience.

Dr. Restak combines brain facts with his own musings to give the illusion of a scientific basis for his recommendations. However, there are no references to studies that confirm any of Dr. Restak's mind enhancing techniques. On the other hand, playing chess, listening to Mozart and reading more books isn't going to hurt anyone either. A better title might be "Use It or Lose It."

While you won't use this book for reference, it still rates three stars for entertainment.

If I had read the reviews here, I never would have bought this book. Boy am I glad I bought this book first!

I won't deny that the writing style is a bit inconsistent (but the author does, after all, admit in the pages of this very book that he sometimes forces himself to write a certain number of pages per hour, which presumably takes precedence over consistency). I also would not deny that some of the chapters are more useful than others. For example, I found the space devoted to a literary description of how to do Tai Chi rather puzzling (if you want to learn Tai Chi, take physical lessons from someone who knows).

However, the fundamental high-level lessons of this book are backed up by research and are worth the price of the book alone. The basic lessons are things like: a) strengthening one part of your brain can strengthen others b) exercising the brain can help it work better c) there are many different types of cognition (cognition is not IQ), and all of these areas can be trained d) you can grow new neurons, the brain is more plastic than we originally believed, and your brain can actually get better with age.

These lessons are invaluable, and anyone who takes these lessons to heart should be actively seeking out new and creative ways to give his or her brain a continual full-brain workout. Much of the book is devoted to ideas about how to do just this; how to exercise the brain. But rather than pick apart each individual idea, you should view this as just a tiny sample of the sorts of things you can do to condition the brain, and an affirmation that creatively generating such brain-conditioning exercises is a useful lifelong goal.

Does it work? Since beginning my full-brain workout program, my scores on ThinkFast have gone up a number of levels and I sure *feel* smarter. You'll have to judge your own results for yourself.

Maintain your airspeed and you'll live a lot longer is the first lesson a pilot learns. Same with your intellectual life; maintain your brainspeed by giving it new challenges everyday of your life.

If there are 30 people in a room, which is more likely; that nobody has the same birthday as somebody else in the room, or that at least two pepople share a birthday?

You have 99 pennies and I have one. You flip one of them. If it comes up heads, I give you my penny and the game is over. If it comes up, tails you give me a penny and we play again. On average, how many times will we flip coins until a game ends? Is it closer to 1 or closer to 100?

You have 12 identical coins, except one weighs slightly different than the rest. You have a balance that can detect minute differences in weight. what is the minimum number of comparisons you must perform to find the odd coin and determine if it heavier or lighter than the rest? Would you be surprised to know you can do it in 3 weighings?

The answers to such questions are within reach of most people. Devoting time each day to thinking about such 'games' can keep your brain up to speed and allow you to live richer life.

Dr. Restak offers a variety of ways to stimulate your thinking, have fun, and keep your brain healthy.

Usually when I read books on increasing intelligence, I'm disappointed. Usually one or two cliche' strategies surface in such books (with strategies that demonstrate the particular expertise of the author but ignoring many other strategies and forms of intelligence). With this book I was not disappointed.

I did not want to sit down and read this book from cover to cover. The wide variety of strategies required too much gear shifting to allow a fly through reading. I needed a day or two to think about how to apply many of the chapters while a few I just blew off as either already in place or not for me (Example: I already run and lift weights and know I will never make time for tai chi without giving up time for walking/jogging; walking's proven in multiple studies to prevent stroke and obesity...not so with tai chi).

So the selling point of the book (it's variety of strategies) makes it somewhat cumbersome to digest in a night but simultaneously makes the book the best I've seen on increasing intelligence.

Dr. Restak gives 28 strategies (each described in only a few pages). I'd recommend putting this book on the kitchen counter or at the bedside and thinking about a chapter and it's application every day or two.

I especially found interesting the last strategy about using technology to expand intelligence. I've written elsewhere (see review of "How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci") about the common practice of many of genius caliber to write in a journal. Dr. Restak takes the practice a step further to explain how journaling with current technology may enhance intelligence even further. The book's worth reading for the thoughts in this last chapter alone.

Having spent time with many of superior intelligence and having cared (as a physician) for many with very low intelligence, I think intelligence is probably overated as a source of happiness and perhaps isn't the supreme blessing some make it out to be. Still this book gives a definite plan for increasing native intelligence to the degree individual genetics might afford; it's this maximization of potential (whatever it might be) that I think gives worth to the idea of improving intelligence and to this book as a means to that goal.

For more on the subject, I recommend two books: For a more in depth analysis of journaling, read 1) How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. For a look at a particular technique recommended by Thoreau, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo, and others, see 2)Anytime...for as Long as You Want: Strength, Genius, Libido, and Erection by Integrative Sex Transmutation.

This book offers an interesting account of the relationship between mental exercise and cognitive enhancement. It contains some useful recommendations. It leans a little too heavily toward this single mental-pushups approach, which may mislead readers into believing that this is the most important factor in the health of their brains. Still, the book will please Restak readers, and introduce others to an intriguing subject.

"Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot" is about how to increase your brain's productivity from being able to focus better, remember things longer, and how to keep your brain healthy and strong.

I found the first 5 chapters to be absolutely useless as author Richard Restak goes through different parts of the brain and how they interact. This information was interesting, but not useful for the rest of the book. If anything, he could have just summarized this into a single page.

The rest of the book gets more useful however. Restak suggests certain activities, such as puzzles, reading, and music, increase the brain's capacity for learning. Restak also suggested different memory increasing activities such as looking at a shape and trying to recreate it from memory or memorizing a list of words.

Probably most interesting was how Restak gets us to think in terms of brain geography. Certain activities, such as reading and writing utilize only certain parts of the brain. Therefore Restak suggests we switch to different tasks, such as something that involves music or patterns to work different areas of the brain and give the original areas a break.

I also liked the idea of a "reading journal". I read a lot of books but I really wish I could retain more knowledge. The concept of a reading journal involves writing down the date you finished the book, and then writing down everything you remember from the book. Then you can look over your notes with previous notes from other books and see connections and linkages.

Restak also gives a useful index of the games, books and activities he likes to use/read. I really liked the idea of the software program "Inspiration" for creating mind maps. I had been looking for something like that... and while it is older and could use some work, it is an interesting tool.

My only beef is that the exercises take a lot of time and work. While the exercises are definitely useful, it can be hard to fit all of these suggestions into a normal life.

Regardless, this is a good book to read if you are looking to "sharpen the saw" and increase your brain's potential. 4 out of 5 stars.

Among the books about improving your thinking, this book takes you one step further. This is not just an explanation of thinking skills but an overview of the interactions among the various parts of the brain. It includes suggestions for general brain health as well as activities that involve multiple areas of the brain, which in turn form new neuro connections.The second half of the title "Unleashing Your Brain's Potential" is more appropriate for the content of this book.
N. Illing, author of SPARKS Ignite Imagination, an informational activity book for stretching the imagination.

Interesting concepts & exercises to stimulate the use of your brain. However, some examples that Dr. Restak used to backup the ideas were not quite convincing. (Some reviewers have quoted them here.) The books provides 20+ exercises that you could use to challenge your brain.

Still a good read for the subject matter. You should find plenty of excellent and practical ideas that work for you.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time with this book. Its short and easy to read (and very interesting) but to get anything out of it you have to work the excersises which are very difficult. Not for the faint of heart!