Making a Good Brain Great: The Amen Clinic Program for Achieving and Sustaining Optimal Mental Performance by Daniel G. Amen

Making a Good Brain Great: The Amen Clinic Program for Achieving and Sustaining Optimal Mental Performance Reviews

• 
  Collette

  Informative read on good brain health and what individuals can to do improve. Dr. Amen specifically recommends exercise (no contact sports, good sleep habits, good nutrition, supplements and neurofeedback. He offers a simplified description of several brain systems and informs the reader as to how the over or under activation of these systems lead to dysfunction. Excellent!
• 
  Gofita

  Any informative information is something you could get from your regular family doctor...Dr. Amen uses anecdotal evidence and bad science. It's all about the money. I'm sure people are helped through the placebo effect but they could save a lot of money and use another cheaper form of placebo.
  
  His studies have never lasted scientific-scrutiny. If they had then it wouldn't just be the Amen clinic using SPECT scans; the medical community would be using them.
  
  For shame, he's preying on people and taking their money.
  
  For information on what the scientific community has said about Dr. Amen and his practices go here:
  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/s....
• 
  Michael Murphy

  An interesting slant on the creating a better brain thing...lol...eating is always an important part of helping your body to heal and be better. It is as equally important for the functionality of your brain. This included the increasing of oxygenated blood to all the parts and organs of your body. Well worth the read for some helpful and healthy tips to increase your brain power, along with the other parts of your body!
• 
  Jason

  I picked this book up because recently a friend of mine was struck by a car and has spent the last month in the ICU with brain swelling. I wanted to know more about brain injuries. The book didn't give much information on what to do with brain injuries, this was more a preventive guide.
  
  There are two parts. The first is more of a text book explanation of what the brain is and how it works. It was pretty dry.
  
  The second part is about what you can be doing to help improve your brain. Most readers that are interested in health already know much of this. Such as get plenty of exercise, read, do puzzles, eat right and even play table tennis. Amen does give some great tips on multi vitamins and different supplements we can take to help improve brain function. And at the end he gives us a 15 day game plan to get started.
  
  Overall it was a good book with a lot of good reinforcements on why and how we can improve our thinkers.
• 
  Amanda Marshall

  A must read for anyone with a brain. While it may seem obvious, many people (Dr's included) fail to address the health of the brain when trying to treat emotional/mental problems. Its easy to forget that the brain controls EVERYTHING. So instead of just medicating the effects (ie: depression, ADD) a person is experiencing, Dr Amen advises that we must look at the actual cause these disorders, which is brain function! After reading this book I've started some supplements and even asked my Dr to let me try some medication that Dr Amen has suggested for my type of issues. Even after just a few weeks I have had amazing results. I'm soooo much less irritable, my skin has cleared up and I've even lost over 10lbs. Brain health will be a top priority for me!
• 
  Wendy

  This books shows SPECT brain imaging and is all about how to keep our brains functioning optimally. I am a total brain whore, so this was like porn for me. It's intelligent, but dumbed down enough that you don't have to be a brain surgeon to get it. It has tips on eating and physical and mental exercise for your 3lb head muscle and includes a 15 day workout plan for your noodle. It made me love my brain so much I would totally make out with it if I could.
• 
  Robert

  This book illuminates the many ways diet, exercise, meditation, music and learning can heal and/or keep a brain healthy. Medication and various therapies are also sometimes called for but they aren't the only route to a healthy brain.
• 
  Justin Annes

  Good practical guide for beginners to start their journey learning about proper brain care. This is definitely worth the ~220 pages to take your time and read. I found the first half of the book to be very informative as the author leaned heavily on his own expertise and studies into the brain. The second half of the book to me seemed more anecdotal and less analytical. Many of the lessons given from the studies referenced in the second half appears to be more correlation than causal. I'm not an expert and feeling lazy so I won't go into the details. Bottom line is take care of the one organ which has the most impact on making your life better. There are many ways we damage our brains on a daily basis and knowing more about this can only help.
  
  One of many great quotes from the book:
  As our brain functions, so do we perceive. Therefore, in reality, we should seek to change not only the outside world but our own brains and attitudes. It is how your brain perceives situations, rather than the actual situations themselves, that causes you to react. I often write this equation for my patients:
  
  A + B = C
  
  A is the actual event,
  B is how we interpret or perceive the event, and
  C is how we react to the event.
  
  Most people think the A things in life, what happens to us, determine our behavior. In large part, it is actually the B stuff. Other people or events (A) cannot make us do anything. It is our brain’s interpretation or perception (B) that causes our behavior (C). Here are two examples.
  
  
  Balancing your brain through diet, exercise, music, stress reduction, and supplements will help your perceptions. At the same time, balancing and improving your perceptions can help balance the brain. Psychotherapy—or therapy for your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors—has been found to actually enhance brain function. How your brain works is certainly involved in how you think, feel, and act, but how you think, feel, and act can also influence brain function. The brain and behavior help or hurt each other.
• 
  Jenny

  I found this very readable and quite interesting. It has a lot of ideas for protecting our brain and making it less likely that we will suffer trauma or debilitating disease impacting our brain (such as Alzheimers). A lot of the ideas are common sense...eat healthy, exercise, learn new skills. But I found the chapter on vitamins really interesting. And I need to cut down on sugar. I've made a few changes already to protect my brain.
• 
  Safa

  Includes a lot of irresponsible science: claims that are unsubstantiated, based on anectodes, small research groups, and pseudo-science. Some dangerously vague statements as well. I respect that he's probably a fantastic psychiatrist, but that doesn't automatically qualify him to write about neuroscience.
• 
  Jackie

  Lots of great ideas in this book to make the brain healthier, especially with eating and supplements. I am concerned that the book (2005) is a bit outdated by now (2017). I want to read more about the subject.
• 
  Cristina N.

  This book has all the necesary ingredients for a better filestyle. All the advices are easy accomplish and most of the resolts can be seen withim weeks.
  Thank you Amen Clinic for shareing this with us!
• 
  Shivangi Dharne

  I love this book. It's just gave me a visual reason to take care of my brain and now I can't stop thinking about blue berries and table tennis. My brain habits are getting better. This book is literally life changing.
• 
  Heydi Smith

  Such an amazing book with all the info I always wanted to know about the brain and nutrition and health in general. Fantastic!!!
• 
  Sue

  The anatomy and physiology review was very interesting but the rest of the book just seemed like an infomercial for Amen Clinics.
• 
  Abdul Khaled

  Pushes a lot of non facts as facts
  overall was a decent read
• 
  Terri

  Lots of helpful information for anyone who cares about their own or their loved ones’ brains. I appreciate the specific examples. I’ll refer back to it for specific recommendations in the future.
• 
  Crista Gregoire

  motivating and easy to read content, bit repetitive at times, but an interesting guide on promoting better brain health presented in a functional way
• 
  Lisa

  I've read some of his newer stuff, and I felt that some things in this book were outdated, as it was published in 2005.
• 
  Alice

  I am listening to this book in the car and I am loving all the info. I was especially happy when he addressed why caffeine is so bad for the brain--since I am the queen of anti-caffeine, but I can never get anyone to listen. At least I got Mr Amen on my side!!
  
  This is probably not the best book about the brain ever written, but even putting aside the author's monotonous reading voice, I loved it. I loved thinking about what I need to do for brain health and also feeling pretty good about most of how I have lived my life that has been good for my brain. I need to work on a few things of course--the one I'd like to work on most is getting more sleep--as my husband says, "it's always about sleep with you." It is!! Never enough and don't mess with what I can get!! I also need to work on learning something new everyday. I have already started that with the next book on CD I started in the car: Learning to speak Swedish. Too bad I only have 12 days till I see my Swedish relatives. I hope my brain can hold on to something!!!
  
  Anyway, there are parts you can fast forward through if you are already educated about it, but I highly recommend this book for basic knowledge and goals to keep a healthy brain.
• 
  Kimberly

  Here is this author's advice in a nutshell: "Kids, do like me and play your ping-pong! Eat your blueberries! And don't be running around hittin' soccer balls with your head!!" This book could possibly be useful for late middle-aged people who want to stave off dementia (and that's important), but for anyone else, if you already know the basic steps to a healthy life (eat your vegetables, don't smoke, etc.) you're not going to get much more from this book. In fact, I'd say the title is misleading. Much of his research is done on people who do NOT have good brains, but are actually quite sick. People who good brains (who buy the book) should just realize, like I have, that good is good enough, and there's no miracle out there that will make your brain SUPER.
• 
  tomlinton

  I've seen Dr Amen
  on PBS
  and having read the book
  and followed some of his suggestions
  
  I'm definitely happier reading
  and social networking
  than I am with television
  just like the post-book research shows
  
  I take some of the supplements
  he's recommended
  and found a particular effect
  with Acetyl-L-Carnitine
  
  The doctor says you'll know
  within 20 minutes which I did
  A friend took a couple of days OBTW
  
  Next is learning to write left-handed
  Play a musical instrument
  possibly with my feet
  Finally crack the frontera barrier
  in Spanish
  and learn to dance
  
  Dance?
  Me?
  
  How 'bout Belly
  I got a big one
  I'm not as you might suppose
  a Ballroom
  a Square
  a Sword Dancer
  Ecdysiast
  or Clogger
  
  Ping Pong anyone?
  :>)
• 
  Jostalady

  I think there are some books that should be read by everyone as a standard. Dr. Amen has several books, and has made very impressive appearances-such as OPB specials, that have raised our awareness and knowledge in caring and improving our brains. The principles are positive, we can change our brains, our brains are involved in everything we do, and when our brains work right, we work right. I particularly recommend this one as an updated introduction and overview to his work. If you will only look at one of his books, choose this one.
  
  This will change your life and give you the tools to improve the lives of those around you. It is powerful and you will be empowered.