Notes of a Paranoid Schizophrenic

There’s a new guru on the scene, Dr Daniel Amen. He has written a book called “Change your Brain, Change your Life“, and the premise of the book is that your brain is vulnerable to all kinds of health issues that are entirely controllable. I like this kind of stuff, because it stays clear of the murky mysteries of psychiatry (I am not knocking psychiatry, but I have personally never found any solace from it).

Instead, it interprets brain health on solid science derived from a brain scanning method called Neuroimaging. I found myself browsing through this book on one of my latest trips to the bookstore, and soon I was sitting down and reading the first chapter, then the second, as if I was reading a thriller and couldn’t wait to get to the climax…

Dr. Amen has collected a bunch of before-and-after photos from his brain image scans, showing how brains can heal just by making a few simple lifestyle changes. There are, for example, brain image scans of people who drink too much alchohol, who are deficient in certain types of nutrients, people who smoke, even people who don’t exercise enough. When these people alter their lifestyle for the better, their “after” brain image scan is clearly more healthy looking.

Even though Dr. Amen is a psychiatrist by training, he seems to have found a breakthrough science that has dramatically helped his patients. Recently Dr. Amen was on PBS Public Television, and he talked about some simple things that people can do to increase their brain performance. One of them was to take fish oil supplements.

I was so convinced by his lecture, that I immediately ran out and bought some Omega 3-6-9 supplements and started taking two a day. I also began taking a multivitamin at the same time. Although the difference is quite subtle, one thing that seems to be improving is my short-term memory (which is disappointingly poor, I sometimes wonder if this is the early onset of Oldtimers Disease!

Dr. Amen also outlined some of the best foods to eat for brain health; here it is:

• avacodos
• green tea
• broccoli
• blueberries
• oatmeal
• oranges
• red peppers
• salmon
• spinach
• tuna
• turkey
• walnuts

Eat and be healthy!

***The purpose of this blog is to learn how to be happy and successful***