Great Books

THE KEY TO A BETTER BODY—in shape, energized, and youthful—is a healthy brain. Based on the latest medical research, as well as on Dr. Amen’s two decades of clinical practice at the re­nowned Amen Clinics, where Dr. Amen and his as­sociates pioneered the use of the most advanced brain imaging technology, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body shows you how to take the very best care of your brain.With fifteen practical, easy-to-implement solutions involving nutritious foods, natural supplements and vitamins, positive-thinking habits, and, when neces­sary, highly targeted medications, Dr. Amen shows you how to:* Reach and maintain your ideal weight* Soothe and smooth your skin at any age * Reduce the stress that can impair your immune system* Sharpen your memory* Increase willpower and eliminate the crav­ings that keep you from achieving your exercise and diet goals* Enhance sexual desire and performance* Lower your blood pressure without medication* Avoid depression and elevate the enjoyment you take in life’s pleasures.Whether you’re just coming to realize that it’s time to get your body into shape, or are already fit and want to take it to the next level, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body is all you need to start putting the power of the brain-body connection to work for you today.

BRAIN PRESCRIPTIONS THAT REALLY WORKIn this breakthrough bestseller, you'll see scientific evidence that your anxiety, depression, anger, obsessiveness, or impulsiveness could be related to how specific structures in your brain work. You're not stuck with the brain you're born with. Here are just a few of neuropsychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen's surprising--and effective--"brain prescriptions" that can help heal your brain and change your life:To Quell Anxiety and Panic: ¸  Use simple breathing techniques to immediately calm inner turmoilTo Fight Depression: ¸  Learn how to kill ANTs (automatic negative thoughts)To Curb Anger: ¸  Follow the Amen anti-anger diet and learn the nutrients that calm rageTo Conquer Impulsiveness and Learn to Focus: ¸  Develop total focus with the "One-Page Miracle"To Stop Obsessive Worrying: ¸  Follow the "get unstuck" writing exercise and learn other problem-solving exercises

In this age of do-it-yourself health care (heck, if the doctor only sees you for 10 minutes each visit, what other options are there?), Change Your Brain, Change Your Life fits in perfectly. Filled with "brain prescriptions" (among them cognitive exercises and nutritional advice) that are geared toward readers who've experienced anxiety, depression, impulsiveness, excessive anger or worry, and obsessive behavior, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life milks the mind-body connection for all it's worth. Written by a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who has also authored a book on attention deficit disorder, Change Your Brain contains dozens of brain scans of patients with various neurological problems, from caffeine, nicotine, and heroin addiction to manic-depression to epilepsy. These scans, often showing large gaps in neurological activity or areas of extreme overactivity, are downright frightening to look at, and Dr. Amen should know better than to resort to such scare tactics. But he should also be commended for advocating natural remedies, including deep breathing, guided imagery, meditation, self-hypnosis, and biofeedback for treating disorders that are so frequently dealt with by prescription only.

In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music—its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it—and the human brain. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, Levitin reveals: • How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world • Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre • That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise • How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our heads And, taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin argues that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. This Is Your Brain on Music is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.

God is great—for your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Based on new evidence culled from brain-scan studies, a wide-reaching survey of people’s religious and spiritual experiences, and the authors’ analyses of adult drawings of God, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and therapist Mark Robert Waldman offer the following breakthrough discoveries: • Not only do prayer and spiritual practice reduce stress, but just twelve minutes of meditation per day may slow down the aging process.• Contemplating a loving God rather than a punitive God reduces anxiety and depression and increases feelings of security, compassion, and love.• Fundamentalism, in and of itself, can be personally beneficial, but the prejudice generated by extreme beliefs can permanently damage your brain.• Intense prayer and meditation permanently change numerous structures and functions in the brain, altering your values and the way you perceive reality.Both a revelatory work of modern science and a practical guide for readers to enhance their physical and emotional health, How God Changes Your Brain is a first-of-a-kind book about faith that is as credible as it is inspiring. 

Meet Emily and Paul: The parents of two young children, Emily is the newly promoted VP of marketing at a large corporation while Paul works from home or from clients′ offices as an independent IT consultant. Their lives, like all of ours, are filled with a bewildering blizzard of emails, phone calls, yet more emails, meetings, projects, proposals, and plans. Just staying ahead of the storm has become a seemingly insurmountable task. In this book, we travel inside Emily and Paul′s brains as they attempt to sort the vast quantities of information they′re presented with, figure out how to prioritize it, organize it and act on it. Fortunately for Emily and Paul, they′re in good hands: David Rock knows how the brain works-and more specifically, how it works in a work setting. Rock shows how it′s possible for Emily and Paul, and thus the reader, not only to survive in today′s overwhelming work environment but succeed in it-and still feel energized and accomplished at the end of the day. YOUR BRAIN AT WORK explores issues such as: - why our brains feel so taxed, and how to maximize our mental resources - why it′s so hard to focus, and how to better manage distractions - how to maximize your chance of finding insights that can solve seemingly insurmountable problems - how to keep your cool in any situation, so that you can make the best decisions possible - how to collaborate more effectively with others - why providing feedback is so difficult, and how to make it easier - how to be more effective at changing other people′s behavior

How to rewire your brain to improve virtually every aspect of your life-based on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology on neuroplasticity and evidence-based practices Not long ago, it was thought that the brain you were born with was the brain you would die with, and that the brain cells you had at birth were the most you would ever possess. Your brain was thought to be “hardwired” to function in predetermined ways. It turns out that's not true. Your brain is not hardwired, it's "softwired" by experience. This book shows you how you can rewire parts of the brain to feel more positive about your life, remain calm during stressful times, and improve your social relationships. Written by a leader in the field of Brain-Based Therapy, it teaches you how to activate the parts of your brain that have been underactivated and calm down those areas that have been hyperactivated so that you feel positive about your life and remain calm during stressful times. You will also learn to improve your memory, boost your mood, have better relationships, and get a good night sleep. Reveals how cutting-edge developments in neuroscience, and evidence-based practices can be used to improve your everyday life Other titles by Dr. Arden include: Brain-Based Therapy-Adult, Brain-Based Therapy-Child, Improving Your Memory For Dummies and Heal Your Anxiety Workbook Dr. Arden is a leader in integrating the new developments in neuroscience with psychotherapy and Director of Training in Mental Health for Kaiser Permanente for the Northern California Region Explaining exciting new developments in neuroscience and their applications to daily living, Rewire Your Brain will guide you through the process of changing your brain so you can change your life and be free of self-imposed limitations.

Take Your First Step Toward True Evolution Ever wonder why you repeat the same negative thoughts in your head? Why you keep coming back for more from hurtful family members, friends, or significant others? Why you keep falling into the same detrimental habits or limiting attitudes—even when you know that they are going to make you feel bad? Dr. Joe Dispenza has spent decades studying the human mind—how it works, how it stores information, and why it perpetuates the same behavioral patterns over and over. In the acclaimed film What the Bleep Do We Know!? he began to explain how the brain evolves—by learning new skills, developing the ability to concentrate in the midst of chaos, and even healing the body and the psyche. Evolve Your Brain presents this information in depth, while helping you take control of your mind, explaining how thoughts can create chemical reactions that keep you addicted to patterns and feelings—including ones that make you unhappy. And when you know how these bad habits are created, it's possible to not only break these patterns, but also reprogram and evolve your brain, so that new, positive, and beneficial habits can take over. This is something you can start to do right now. You and only you have the power to change your mind and evolve your brain for a better life—for good.

What happens inside our brains when we think about money? Quite a lot, actually, and some of it isn't good for our financial health. In Your Money and Your Brain, Jason Zweig explains why smart people make stupid financial decisions -- and what they can do to avoid these mistakes. Zweig, a veteran financial journalist, draws on the latest research in neuroeconomics, a fascinating new discipline that combines psychology, neuroscience, and economics to better understand financial decision making. He shows why we often misunderstand risk and why we tend to be overconfident about our investment decisions. Your Money and Your Brain offers some radical new insights into investing and shows investors how to take control of the battlefield between reason and emotion.Your Money and Your Brain is as entertaining as it is enlightening. In the course of his research, Zweig visited leading neuroscience laboratories and subjected himself to numerous experiments. He blends anecdotes from these experiences with stories about investing mistakes, including confessions of stupidity from some highly successful people. Then he draws lessons and offers original practical steps that investors can take to make wiser decisions.Anyone who has ever looked back on a financial decision and said, "How could I have been so stupid?" will benefit from reading this book.

Yes, you can teach your old brain new tricks!Breakthroughs in the scientific understanding of how the brain works have shown us that our brains are constantly rewiring themselves in response to events in our lives.This handbook applies this new science in practical ways, by giving us a training program to re-pattern our behavior and thereby change the ways our brain is wired. It interrupts our suffering, sharpens our mental abilities and corrects our cognitive imbalances. As we learn these mental skills, the neural patterns of our brains begin to change and we literally reprogram the neural networks through which information and energy flows.If you've heard about neuroplasticity, epigenetics, psychoneuroimmunology and other scientific advances, but didn't know how you could apply these breakthroughs to improve your life, you will find [i]Heal Your Mind, Rewire Your Brain[/i] a treasure trove of resources.It provides a clear, step-by-step program that shows you how to correct the imbalances of the stressed-out brain, and install a peaceful state of mind.

Feed Your Brain Lose Your Belly is a novel book written by the neurosurgeon-author of the critically acclaimed The Brain Trust Program.   Dr. Larry McCleary’s brain-healthy, waist friendly diet program maximizes brain health while simultaneously facilitating weight loss.  This can confidently be stated because the diet was rigorously tested in a human clinical trial (the "Gold-Standard" type of testing that scientists depend upon) and was shown to produce substantial weight loss. Learn how to: Enhance brain health by feeding the brain properly Prevent brain starvation – something that neuroscientists have begun seeing in Alzheimer’s patients.  This observation is based upon the fall in cerebral glucose metabolism seen on PET scans of persons at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease. Preserve mental function Suppress hunger – it is really your brain, not your belly that is hungry Convert “sticky” fat cells (that hold on to fat and don’t release it) back into the temporary storers of fat that they were evolutionarily designed to be Regulate insulin and glucose metabolism properly for both optimal weight management and brain health Understand not only how many calories, but also what types of calories are brain friendly and will help you to lose weight and maintain the loss Feed Your Brain Lose Your Belly clearly explains the innate ability of the body to save weight as fat, why it does so and how that has allowed humans to survive over millions of years.  While this process has intrinsic benefits, if it becomes derailed, as it has for so many in today’s world, weight gain can be an unwanted result. We are experiencing an epidemic of obesity and widespread memory decline which is now known to be accelerated by diabetes and other metabolic conditions affiliated with obesity.  It seems as if calories are bypassing our brains and are heading straight to our bellies. This occurs because of a complex hormonal imbalance involving elevated insulin levels that produces "sticky” fat cells. When we eat, fat cells expand and store some of the energy we have just consumed.  This storage was evolutionarily designed to be temporary to sustain the body in times of famine and release the energy later as needed.  Thus, fat cells act like accordions -- expanding and contracting.  When they become sticky, they continue to expand when we eat, but don't contract when they should to release fat as it is needed for energy.  This makes us gain weight and prematurely stimulates our appetite centers in a vicious cycle -- illustrating the physiologic link that represents the Brain-Belly Connection. Having "sticky" fat cells makes us get hungry and gain weight -- not a good situation to be in if weight loss is your goal. Feed Your Brain Lose Your Belly describes the results of prospective, double blind, placebo controlled human clinical testing that evaluated the diet and a unique weight-loss supplement - Vitexxa.   On average over 4 pounds were lost in 6 weeks on the diet and exercise program alone.  And it was 92% fat loss, not water.   When the supplement was added, the weight loss was almost tripled to nearly 12 pounds!  The book gives insight about what to look for in a clinical trial. Learn how you can benefit from a combination of proper diet and nutrient supplementation that can speed you to improved health and a thinner lifestyle!