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

~ Dr. Earl Henslin (Author), Dr. Daniel Amen (Foreword)
Key Phrases: mood centers, joy boosters, brain house, Raising Your Joy Quota, Happy Life, The Depressed Low-Mood Space (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A break-through guide to help people experience lasting joy by restoring brain health.

What does the latest research in brain science and brain imaging say about our ability (or inability) to experience joy and happiness? Is our lack of joy a sin problem or a brain problem? In this life-altering book, Dr. Earl Henslin reveals that to enjoy our lives to the fullest, to become more loving, more Christ-like, we need to become more capable of healing and nourishing our brains. Many problems, long thought of as spiritual in nature--anger, depression, mood swings, anxiety, addictions--are often the result of a sick brain that cannot comprehend a good and loving God. This Is Your Brain on Joy shares exciting new findings in neuroscience that are spiritually sound, showing us how to care for our brains so we not only more effectively use them to glorify God but also experience His love.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (January 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078522873X
• ISBN-13: 978-0785228738
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (108 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #36,818 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book will bring more joy into your life, January 5, 2009

By	Daniel G. Amen (Newport Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why doesn't God deliver me from my moodiness? Maybe you need to read this book..., February 2, 2009

By	Dave Ingland (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Review of This is Your Brain on Joy, June 22, 2009

By	Stephen Escalera "Eskypades" (Virginia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.