Change Your Brain, Change Your Body

February 15, 2010
Prolific self-help author Amen (24 titles and counting) is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who's found self-help success with a lively, populist style. In his follow-up to bestseller Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, he jokes that "most people care more about their face, their boobs, their bellies, and their butts" than their brains, but makes the serious point that "it's your brain that decides" whether you overeat or starve yourself, exercise or vegetate. Using 21 brain-scan images ("Since 1991, the four Amen Clinics have performed 54,000 brain scans" to diagnose patients), Amen illustrates the importance of a healthy lifestyle for proper brain function. Contrasting "brain robbers," including alcohol, smoking, and stress, with "brain enhancers," Amen discusses the immediate and long-term benefits of (among other techniques) physical activity, balanced eating, and natural medicines, benefits which include relief from depression, ADD and other psychic ills commonly treated with prescription drugs (though he doesn't rule out pharmaceuticals as a backup method of treatment). Using clear explanation and anecdotes from his work, Amen presents an interesting slant on a well-worked topic, despite a heavy sales pitch for his own line of supplements.