Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

Amen, Daniel G. Change Your Brain Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted. New York: Harmony Books, 2010.


Psychiatrist Daniel G. Amen explores the brain-body connection in his medical practice and in this book. In particular, Change Your Brain Change Your Body focuses on how taking care of the health of your brain can result in better health for your entire body.

In the early chapters of the book, Amen makes the case for brain health and how it can affect the health of the rest of the body. This is enhances by images from SPECT scans, which Amen uses in his practice to measure activity in different parts of the brain.

The subtitle of the book touts the brain as a means to get “the body you’ve always wanted.” For me, that includes getting my weight under control, and several chapters are devoted to the subject. There is no escaping a good diet and exercise, both of which get a chapter. What Amen adds is that an understanding of how one’s brain works can help on curb cravings and address brain deficiencies that may be roadblocks to sticking to a weight loss program. By addressing problems in the brain, one becomes more able to address problems with weight.

Good health is more than proper weight. It includes the skin, heart and glands. Good health is also a full life, which includes relationships, the ability worthy pursue worthy goals and the capacity to remember and savor our experiences. Each of these issues is addressed.

Amen doesn’t prescribe a single solution for everyone. Depending on your brain issues, the solution may be as simple as diet and exercise, it may include supplementation or even particular medications or therapies. Obviously, medical interventions should only be undertaken with the supervision of a physician and you should supplementation and physical fitness programs with yours.

The book doesn’t stick too close to traditional medicine. Amen thinks nutritional supplements can be useful and can reduce reliance on medications, but supplements can have issues of drug interaction and side effects that should be covered with a physician. He suggests meditation for stress management and has used hypnosis in his practice to address several issues including weight loss. (For those interested in meditation, Amen recommends The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson. Hypnosis is recommended in other weight loss books including I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna, which includes a self-hypnosis CD.)

In some ways, the book could say change your body change your brain. Many of Amen’s recommendations, especially related to diet and exercise are good recommendations for physical health. Throughout the book, he says that what is good for the heart is good for the brain. He even mentions a study that shows that physically active children perform better academically.

If your interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Emotional Energy Factor by Mira Kirshenbaum
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna
Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Robbins Blair
The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

Feeding the Fire by Mark E. Eberhart

Mankind is hungry for energy. The United States is a huge consumer of energy, and our lifestyle depends on it. This makes us, and other developed countries, vulnerable. The burning of fossil fuels is leading to a changing climate that could have many negative ramifications. Our dependence on foreign sources of fuel, especially oil, have embroiled us in wars oversees and made us uncomfortable allies with nations that do not share our values.

Chemistry professor Mark E. Eberhart suggests that we need a good energy diet. Unfortunately, after spending a couple of chapters of Feeding the Fire setting up the idea, he ends up having only a little to say about an energy diet in the final chapter of the book.

In between, however, he tells an interesting history of energy from the big bang to our age. He also provides a primer in thermodynamics aimed at an audience that hasn’t studied science or engineering. If the book had purported to be about that, I’d probably be speaking about it in glowing terms. If you’re looking for a book that explains energy and how it works that is written for an audience with little scientific background, this is a good option.

Though most of the book concerns itself with the dispersal of energy through the universe and the development of technology, the energy diet is mainly a matter of policy. The central element of Eberhart’s vision is an “energy-industrial complex” modeled on the way the U.S. military works with industry on the long-term development, delivery and reliability of technology. U.S. energy policy is so disjointed that in practice we have no policy, but with imagination and discipline (and arguably the setting aside of partisanship for matters of national security that transcend it) we could develop a comprehensive policy that gets our efforts moving toward a more secure, efficient and cleaner future. It doesn’t even need to be a perfect policy, just a commitment to take specific actions and set specific standards to make things better over time.

Eberhart has some specific recommendations, especially related to the development of electric vehicles and supporting technolgies. In the 12 years since Feeding the Fire was published, we’ve made some headway on many of them. This is in spite of the fact that we still do not have a comprehensive energy policy.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

A Professor, a President, and a Meteor by Cathryn J. Prince

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont

Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher

The Computers of Star Trek by Lois Gresh & Robert Weinberg

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson

I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy

My Inventions by Nikola Tesla

The Power Makers by Maury Klein

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Rust by Jonathan Waldman

Eberhart, Mark E. Feeding the Fire: The Lost History and Uncertain Future of Mankind’s Energy Addiction. New York: Harmony Books, 2007.

The Gospels

The Bible has four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. “Gospel” comes from an Old English word meaning “good news.” The gospels are the good news of the incarnation of Christ, the coming of God to save us from sin and death, to redeem us to Himself, and give us a new, eternal life. They are also biographies of Jesus, summarizing his deeds and sayings.

It may seem redundant to have four biographies of Jesus. Each Gospel emphasizes different aspects of Jesus, and together they give the reader a fuller picture of Him.

-Matthew, traditionally recognized as being written by that apostle, gives particular attention to demonstrations that Jesus is the Messiah, frequently referring to the Old Testament. Jesus had a masterful understanding of the Old Testament, as shown in Matthew’s record of the Sermon on the Mount.

-Mark focuses on Jesus’ miraculous deeds, proofs of His deity. It is the shortest of the four books.

-Luke pays particular attention to Jesus’ character and teaching ministry. It is thought to have been written with a Greek audience in mind, and that may make it more accessible to modern readers than the other gospels.

-John expresses a high Christology, showing Jesus’ claims to deity in His teaching and actions. John devotes more attention to the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion than the other gospels.

The gospels corroborate each other. In theological terms, this is referred to as the harmony of the gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke, collectively called the Synoptic Gospels, track together particularly well.

Some have supposed that Matthew and Luke draw from Mark as a source, or that all have a common source in some unfound book. The more straightforward explanation is that found within the Bible that witnesses of Jesus’ life or their close associates authored the gospels. Matthew and John were followers of Jesus during his earthly ministry. Mark was a member of the early church and new the apostles and others who personally new Jesus. Luke claims to have been closely associated with the apostles and to draw on eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. Luke indicates that there were many written accounts of the life of Christ. History (supervised by God) preserved four books that were as authoritative very early by the church.

Calling the gospels biographies of Jesus may set up some false expectations for readers of modern biographies. Ancient biographies were often collections of a famous person’s sayings or a summary of their deeds (Mark is a good example of this); they were not necessarily chronological accounts of a person’s life. The gospels are somewhat chronological, but their middle parts may also be organized along other lines: teachings, miracles, deeds of high character, and other concepts.


If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Genesis
The Holy Bible
John
Luke
Mark
Matthew
Proverbs