Customer Reviews

This Is Your Brain on Joy: A Revolutionary Program for Balancing Mood, Restoring Brain Health, and Nurturing Spiritual Growth

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What does grey matter have to do with peace and joy?

A lot more than most of us realize.

Many of my clients who are deeply religious are both stunned and relieved when they find out that their behavior or mood issues may be physical rather than spiritual problems. So it is with great joy that I want to recommend a new book by dear friend and longtime colleague, Dr. Earl Henslin. Though the book will encourage people of any faith, it is written from a distinctly compassionate Christian viewpoint and may be especially helpful to the dazed and confused sitting in our church pews!

Be ready to have a few of your long-held assumptions challenged, and discover some "ah-ha" insights that will deepen your understanding and widen your compassion. In this breakthrough book, Dr. Earl Henslin reveals how the study of brain imaging turned his practice of psychotherapy upside down - with remarkably positive results. He shares answers to puzzling questions such as:

Why isn't my faith in God enough to erase my blue moods?
Why haven't I been able to conquer my anger? Pray away my fear and worry? Why can't I find freedom from secret obsessions and addictions?

Using my Amen Brain System Checklist and the 5 Basic Mood Areas in the brain, Dr. Henslin reveals what happens to our minds when any of those areas are out of balance. And the fun part? He applies the latest brain research to our everyday lives in an entertaining, enjoyable and informative way. (You don't have to be a neurosurgeon to love this book.)

This Is Your Brain on Joy offers a wide variety of practical, researched-based ways to nourish and balance your brain, including

* Up-to-date nutritional information
* Exercise as powerful as anti-depressants
* Corrective thinking techniques
* Supplements and/or medical recommendations
* Music, beauty, nature, aromatherapy
* Uplifting movies and books
* Scriptures and prayers to help soothe and nourish specific areas of the brain
* The healing power of community and charity
...... and more!

Finally, Dr. Henslin, an avid and lifelong student of scripture, includes a mini-study of Paul's letter to the Philippians where the aging apostle unveils his "secrets" to lasting joy.

Read this book and you'll know how exactly how to nourish your mind, balance your brain and help others do the same. After all, the capacity for joy is a terrible thing to waste.

What a great find! My wife has struggled with ADD and me being a highly-driven and results-oriented person, it is often difficult for me to understand her actions. Not only has This is Your Brain on Joy helped me to understand the symptoms, Dr Henslin has also gone into some possible causes as well as treatments.

One of the points that I really appreciated most is that Dr. Henslin is a Christian doctor and know the Scriptures and has a strong faith, yet tries to drive home the point that one must be willing to take an active approach to overcome personal issues. As Christians, many rely on God to heal them through prayer, yet do not do a single thing to move towards such a recovery. This book will help many that struggle with certain things to learn how to overcome them. This in addition to prayer is something God will use to deliver his people.

There is a very useful test to determine what issues one may be struggling with and therefore which parts of the book will be most useful to the reader. For me, it was like a eureka moment. I had heard my wife talk about her ADD for years, but seeing it in print and connecting the issues she has with ADD through taking the test with her really helped me gain some clarity.

Henslin breaks down the different parts of the brain and isolates conditions that occur in those areas--such as ADD being associated with the prefrontal cortex--and then delivers the treatments specific to them. It's much more than getting a prescription for Ridalin; it's a full regimen of actions, herbal remedies, thoughts, etc. There are even key Bible verses and prayers offered as a way to connect this program with faith and to put trust in God to heal through our active participation.

This is Your Brain on Joy has been a tremendous blessing in our home. I am so grateful for the work of Dr Henslin and his willingness to share his research and wisdom with the world through this book.

Do you know someone with ADD, ADHD, PTSD, or any other learning or emotional disorder? If so, you have to tell them about this book. The techniques and treatments described in the book have led to breakthroughs for many people suffering from a wide spectrum of brain disorders, from brain injuries to chemical imbalances. Unfortunately, the treatment is currently available only on the West Coast and in the D. C. area. However, if it is as promising as it appears to be, it shouldn't be long before it becomes available in other areas.

I've read several books written by health professionals, and this is the first one that wasn't a struggle to read. Although there is plenty of scientific information, Dr. Henslin manages to impart his knowledge without resorting to medical-speak. He mixes anecdotes with information in a manner that holds your attention. He also includes plenty of sources of additional information. And---he communicates his message with a thoroughly Christian worldview. He relates stories of Christian people struggling with emotional and behavioral problems who thought they had spiritual problems. What a relief to know that their struggles were caused by abnormalities in their brains!

I chose to review this book because I was attracted by the title, This Is Your Brain on Joy. It reminded me of the award-winning TV commercial: "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" In addition, who isn't attracted to the word "joy?"

The subtitle is as provocative: "A Revolutionary Program for Balancing Mood, Restoring Brain Health, and Nurturing Spiritual Growth." Dr. Daniel G. Amen, who developed the medical tests and treatments described in the book, wrote the foreword. Not often can I say that a book lives up to its title, but this one does. The doctor is so happy to be able to help people with their seemingly insurmountable problems that he just exudes joy as he presents the material. My favorite story was that of one of the research subjects in the appendix, "The Day I Had My Head Examined." She describes her experience candidly and with humor.

Everyone wants to be joyful, to be happy. What if there was a way to "rewire" your brain to experience all the joy you could possibly handle? What if you learned doctors could, by taking a picture of your brain, tell you exactly what was wrong and how to fix it? Sounds like something you might find in Star Trek, doesn't it?

According to Dr. Earl Henslin, this is not science fiction, but a medical reality. In his book, This Is Your Brain on Joy, Dr. Henslin discusses the diagnoses that are made possible through a brain imaging technique called SPECT imaging as introduced to him by his friend, Dr. Daniel Amen. Dr. Henslin gives a brief overview of the five main areas of the brain ("Mood Centers") that control a person's emotions. With the help of SPECT imaging, he also shows what each area looks like both in a well-balanced brain and in a brain that is not so well-balanced. He provides helpful tips in recognizing problematic symptoms of each Mood Center and gives a list of aids to assist in regaining the proper balance. These aids include eating a proper diet, getting lots of exercise, reading books, listening to music and even watching movies.

On a medical level, this book is rather fascinating in its descriptions of the varying "Mood Centers" of the brain. Using simple terms and nicknames for the more complex medical names, Dr. Henslin describes how each area controls certain moods. He also shows what the brain and subsequent mood would be if each area were damaged or out of balance. The aids at the end of each chapter are very helpful in learning to control or adjust each of the mood centers. Beyond the medical aspects, I found the book lacking in depth. Much of the book comes across as an infomercial for Dr. Amen's products such as his research, his SPECT scanning technology or the medicinal supplements available through Dr. Amen's web site and clinic.

For a book supposedly written from a Christian perspective, there seemed very little solid Biblical application in the underlying overall philosophy. One of the points that jumped out at me was found in the following statement: "Only God knows, see, and can judge how many of our errors are due to our free wills and how many are due to our faulty hardwiring. Let me repeat this: only God knows how much of our wrongdoing is the result of pure rebellion or evil intent and how much is cause by brain imbalances" (p.8). The author seems to be suggesting that some of our wrongdoing is simply not our fault, but rather the fault of a scientific imbalance. In other words, it's out of our control. If we can figure out how to "re-wire" our brains, we will naturally choose good things instead of evil. This theme of using self-medicating remedies to fix our sorrow is repeated throughout the book.

A second concern, and perhaps the most important, is that the pursuit of happiness is seen as the ultimate end, that is, pursuit of happiness for the sake of happiness itself. For instance, on p. 45, Dr. Henslin, in noting that happiness is most often gained in a community setting, quips "It really does take a village to make us happy....It's no wonder that many consider AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] the world's largest church. More real church is probably happening in many of these meetings of honest people in rented office spaces than in some of our greatest and most beautiful cathedrals." If we define "church" as a gathering of people to have a good time and feel happy about ourselves for happiness' sake or even for community's sake, than perhaps this might be true. But if church is defined as the visible gathering of the invisible church to worship God and to feed our spiritual bodies with the meat of God's Word while at the same time fellowshipping with one another, then AA couldn't be further from any resemblance of real church.

In the last chapter, Henslin attempts to bring Scripture back into the picture, but once again misses the mark. Henslin says, "Toward the end of this heartfelt thank-you [Paul's epistle to the Philippians], the aging apostle wrote, `I have learned the secret...' The secret to what? Inquiring minds want to know. `The secret,' Paul writes, `of being content' (4:12)." From this point, Henslin launches into his arguments for why being content helps us to be happier and he almost gets it right. Unfortunately, he takes Paul's letter and almost completely ignores the gospel presented there, focusing only on how we can make ourselves be happier. Instead of the gospel being the foundation for our joy, it is viewed simply as a tool to help us along in achieving personal joy.

This is Your Brain on Joy is a good book for discovering a small part of the medical side of the brain's operations and how we can influence our own moods. But aside from this and the suggestions for improving your mood (which, quite honestly, can probably be found in almost any self-help book of every sort), the book misses the mark of where our true and lasting joy can be found - in the person and work of Jesus Christ for the sake of the glory of God.

I am still not sure what to make of this book. I am glad I did not pay more. Much of the book felt like an advertisement for a particular SPECT center, which is a very expensive thing to do. Many recommendations and parts of the book were very repetitive. Some, especially the nutritional advice, is not really supported by anything but the opinion of the author or perhaps had not been shown when he wrote it to not really work. Some of this was very worrying; it seems to fit into a fairly affluent type of religion.
But parts are good, and really point out how those in the faith community need to be more open to therapy and medical help; understanding that many emotional and psychological problems have an organic or chemical base that is just as logical to treat as an ulcer or wound.
And joy is a good thing to pursue. I just feel that good and poor are mixed together here.

Do you have categories in your library or even in your brain for self-help books you have read? I do. I have three categories for them. The first one is called Profound and in that category I place books which have the ability to profoundly affect the way I look at life. The second category I call Renewing and into that category I place books which contain insights and knowledge that isn't necessarily new to me yet somehow renews my vigor and encourages my heart, mind and soul to persevere. The third category is sort of a catch-all which I call Visit Often and into this category I place books that don't strictly fit into either of the first two AND have content that I need to revisit and rethink periodically. There should be more categories, but my brain has limits to how many categories it can remember!

After the first chapter or two of This Is Your Brain On Joy I thought it might go into the first category because of the nature of the material as it applied to me. Not being a specialist in anything like this, or having much background in human anatomy, I was a little intimidated by the technical aspects and how much detail Dr. Henslin goes into in explaining the various brain functions and locations. While he obviously puts forth a lot of effort in his writing style to keep the medical-speak to a minimum, there is still some new concepts and terms to grasp and this takes a couple of readings for the first few sections. Still, the knowledge was very new to me, and its impact on me of how I would look at people's behavior, from a Christian worldview, was going to be profoundly affected.

But the middle of the book became much more practical in its application oriented content and at that point, there wasn't so much new information, as it was refreshing, allowing me to more clearly understand how the scientific discoveries explained in the first section were able to affect real changes in how we treat and help people dealing with life's difficulties. I began to see how my own tendencies and behavior could be more effectively managed and understood; how exercise and diet would affect my outlook; where meditation on Scripture and various types of passages would be able to help and why... perhaps this book is really a book to RENEW my hope and give me greater empathy toward others?!

Finally, after reading and re-reading the first few sections and the middle, I got to the last chapters and it all fell into place. This book is one of those few, along with the Bible, that go into the Visit Often category. The principles and the ideas presented here, along with the supporting materials and recommended readings, make this book one to keep a handle on. In all my 30+ years as an adult Christian, 25+ years as a husband, 20+ years as a father, I am embarrassed to say that I have never really examined the concept of Joy beyond a few of the passages in the Bible where the apostle Paul tells us to count it all joy when we encounter various difficulties. I never asked myself what Paul's secret was? There's even a very popular book and video out these days called The Secret which is really no secret at all; just a way for some people to generate a lot of money for themselves, in my opinion. In This Is Your Brain On Joy I discovered that not only is the human brain a marvelous organ created by our magnificent God, it is discoverable and knowable, if perhaps never fully. That knowledge gives me freedom to hope and experience real joy

Life continues to come at me each day with unexpected turns and new challenges. I think I've found a survivor's manual kind of resource in this book to pull out of my back pack as needed in order to survive with my joy and hope intact.

One of the quotes in the book by Charles Spurgeon is worth repeating: Fits of depressions come over most of us. Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise may not always be ready, the brave not always courageous and the joyous not always happy. It is my opinion that This Is Your Brain On Joy is an effective resource training us with understanding how to establish patterns of living and thought that will increase our joy and effectiveness in our lives and work.

The book sleeve states the book features "a revolutionary program for balancing mood, restoring brain health, and nurturing spiritual growth."

So I went into this books with high hopes on what a renewed/varied/enhanced "walk" might positively impact the prospect of improved health (mentally, physically, etc.). Within the first 10 pages of the book, Henslin states: "Prayer works. Prayer heals...But there is our part, the part God has allowed us to discover and uncover that is just as significant in our journey toward physical or mental healing."

And I stood back a minute and said - science is just as significant as God? That doesn't make too much sense. Surely it's a factor - but to me, to be equally weighed is a bit skewed.

Henslin also notes he believes "that having a better, even simplistic working knowledge of brain problems will help us better represent Jesus." This point is probably a more realistic one than his first. When we know what makes us tick - what foods amplify our conditions, we're more likely to avoid such things - and in doing so, reflect ourselves in a more accurate manner.

Unfortunately, further on into the book, I found it to be more about what supplements and medications to take and less about a spiritual take on all things considered. In every chapter Henslin praises the SPECT brain scan - which is a way for your physician to see how blood is flowing through different areas of your brain. And in doing so he might be able to identify what areas are under or over active - leading to certain behaviors.

Between Henslin's endorsement of Dr. Amen's clinic and the $1,000 brain scan, I was fairly disappointed the book concentrated so much on possible remedies (either available over the counter, through a physician or through a costly scan - which in today's economy is surprisingly tasteless) and less on your spiritual walk.

Granted, Henslin included various scripture passages and songs in support of particular conditions (whether it be anger, depression, anxiety, etc.) but in the end, I think the readers of this book are more apt to quickly seek out a medication in hopes of feeling better.

An interesting look at how our brains work based on Dr. Henslin's and Dr. Amen's studies using SPECT scans. There are many different parts of our brains and each part plays a different role in affecting our moods. This book gives detailed description of common mood disorders and then realistic guideline for how to treat each disorder.

This book was very interesting to me. On one hand, I am really into psychology and mood disorders, so this book was very appealing, interesting and insightful. On the other hand, I am a Christian. And the Christian part of me was surprised at the lack of balance between science and spirituality. To me, this was a book about a psychological experiment. I really went into this book blindly looking for a spiritual revelation that would bring great joy into my life. This is not what the book was about. However, as a psychology book, I thought it was great. I like that the author provides a very basic assessment quiz so that you are not guessing what your problem is. And after you've determined your main problem areas, there are explanations of each of the imbalances. What I really like is that this book doesn't just point you to the nearest pharmacy. There are ways to support your physical and emotional health using nutrition, natural remedies, herbs and drugs, if necessary. I found the SPECT scan information extremely interesting, but this book creates a desire to go get one of these scans for yourself, and they are extremely expensive, unattainable for the average person. It is a great science book with just a touch of christian perspective.

If I could do this review in just one word, it would be "Wow!" Seriously. I wish I walked away from every book with the understanding of the topic the way I did this one. And I hope that everything I write will do the same.

This is a book about your brain - not so much about how you think, but about your brain itself. It even includes pictures.

A lot of time and energy has been put into helping helping people's mental health. We look at their actions as symptoms of unhealthy minds and try to treat those mental health issues with medication and/or therapy.

Dr. Henslin goes a step further. He believes that mental health is not the goal - brain health is. And when a person's mental health is off, that is not the problem, but rather another symptom of a deeper issue in the brain itself.

And so into the brain we go on a journey that I found both fascinating and enlightening.

This book included everything necessary for a captivating read: humor, pictures (both literal and mental pictures), stories, and good content.

Dr. Henslin does an excellent job of explaining the medical terms of the brain in words that anyone can understand. For instance, the upper temporal lobes act like "Temper Lofts", while the basal ganglia houses our "Basement of Giant Fears". Using these descriptions throughout helps the common person (like me) understand the brain in a whole new way.

Throughout the book we work our way through five main areas of the brain, exploring how a person acts when that part is healthy and when it is unhealthy. The recommended treatment for unhealthy brains usually follows a regimen of proper nutrition and supplements, exercise, Scripture and prayer. In very damaged situations, short-term medication may be necessary in order to bring the person to the place where the other things can begin to work. Dr. Henslin also suggests various aromas, music, movies, and books that are targeted to the person's specific need that will promote brain growth and health.

Now if this sounds too easy, let me assure you that it's not. Dr. Henslin strongly recommends (almost demands) that all of this be done in conjunction with at least your medical doctor, if not also your pastor, therapist, etc.

In cases where standard treatment has shown no improvement, or even made it worse, he recommends a SPECT brain scan to highlight the areas of the physical brain that are causing the problems.

Some of the things covered in this book are:

SPECT scans
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
ADD and ADHD
bi-polar disorder
depression
eating disorders
specific medications
and the whole gamut of mental health issues that have become a part of our daily vocabularies.

There is no way I can do justice to this book in a short review. I highly recommend This is Your Brain on Joy to anyone who works in the mental health field or who is close to someone who has (or has not) been diagnosed with a mental health issue.

This Is Your Brain On Joy by Dr. Earl Henslin is a cogent appeal for the use of diagnostic "brain imaging" as a foundational step in understanding and treating mental, emotional, and behavioral problems. Using humor and a sensitive, nuanced application of Biblical truth, Dr. Henslin manages to "lasso and subdue" the complicated terminology of brain research for regular folks. In This Is Your Brain On Joy, Dr. Henslin guides readers through a series of questions designed to uncover potential areas of over-functioning and sub-functioning in any of the five "rooms" of the brain. Then, he outlines how behavior, mood, and relationships are affected by improper blood flow to various parts of the brain. With great compassion, Dr. Henslin explores the interdependence between healthy brain functioning and the presence of "spiritual fruit" in the lives of Christians. He suggests that certain brain chemistries make joy, contentment, self-control, and other expressions of "spiritual maturity" impossible without physical healing of the brain, which he maintains is often possible through a combination of nutrition, exercise, supplements, and in some cases, medication. He does not suggest that Christians naively strive to eliminate all suffering from their lives, remembering that Jesus was a "man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief" (Isa. 53:3 NLT). Instead, he reminds his audience that God's offering to humanity is not "a perfect world, [but] perfect peace" (Henslin 197). Dr. Henslin includes a series of brain photographs throughout the book, providing a poignant and often gripping representation of minds pocked and dented by injuries and chemical imbalances. He goes on to show the physical changes in the same brains after he used SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) imaging to design and implement appropriate therapies. Surprisingly readable, the book is full of touching examples of lives profoundly changed, from hateful, abusive geriatrics to raging, inconsolable little girls. This Is Your Brain on Joy will complicate all readers' understanding of sin and righteousness, and will explode their capacity for compassion--for other people, and for themselves. A must read for every burnt-out parent, exhausted spouse, committed teacher, and dedicated friend, This Is Your Brain On Joy rescues the "hope of joy" for Christians, dusts it off, and places it firmly back in view.