Shrink Rap Radio #55: Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

Daniel G. Amen, M.D. is the author of a somewhat controversial book which came out in 1998, with the title Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness, which is currently getting a lot of play on public television. According to the book's dust jacket, Dr. Amen is a clinical neuroscientist, child and adolescent psychiatrist, and the director of behavioral medicine clinics in four cities. Dr. Amen is a nationally recognized expert on the relationship between brain and behavior, and on attention deficit disorder, and is the author of several books, including Windows Into The ADD Mind and Firestorms in The Brain.

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Comments

[Patricia]

I met Dr. Amen at a lecture he gave and then participated in his brain study of injured and uninjured brains. I learned a lot about the damage that can occur even from normal children's bangs to the head - the kind that happen to most kids who engage in sports.

If you are interested in the brain and how it works, I highly recommend reading ""My Stroke of Insight"" by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. It's on the NY Times Bestseller list and it's a wonderful book. Dr. Taylor's talk at TED dot com is also AMAZING! Oprah interviewed Dr. Taylor and you can check that out on Oprah.com. And Time Magazine named Dr. T one of the 100 Most Influential people in the world. Having read her book, I can see why all the attention.

Dr. Amen's book is brain science and it's great at that. Dr. Taylor is a Harvard Brain Scientist, but what she writes about is the science and much more. She really cracks the code to understand how our brains (right and left hemispheres) work and she explains how we can get into our right brain and be happier and more joyful. Aside from any of the science, My Stroke of Insight is also just a great story.