Making a Good Brain Great

The Amen Clinic Program for Achieving and Sustaining Optimal Mental Performance

By: Daniel G. Amen M.D.

Narrated by: Daniel G. Amen M.D.

Daniel Amen, M.D., one of the world’s foremost authorities on the brain, has news for you: Your brain is involved in everything you do—learn to care for it properly, and you will be smarter, healthier, and happier in as little as 15 days!

You probably run, lift weights, or do yoga to keep your body in great shape; you put on sunscreen and lotions to protect your skin; but chances are you simply ignore your brain and trust it to do its job. People unknowingly endanger or injure their brains, stress them by working at a frenzied pace and not getting enough sleep, pollute them with caffeine, alcohol, and drugs, and deprive them of proper nutrients. Brain dysfunction is the number one reason people fail at school, work, and relationships. The brain is the organ of learning, working, and loving—the supercomputer that runs our lives. It’s very simple: when our brains work right, we work right—and when our brains have trouble, we have trouble in our lives.

Luckily, it’s never too late: the brain is capable of change, and when you care for it, the results are amazing. Making a Good Brain Great gives you the tools you need to optimize your brain power and enrich your health and your life in the process. The principles and exercises in this book, based on years of cutting-edge neuroscience research and the experiences of thousands of people, provide a wealth of practical information to teach you how to achieve the best brain possible.

You will learn:

• How to eat right to think right
• How to protect your brain from injuries and toxic substances
• How to nourish your brain with vitamins and do mental workouts to keep it strong
• The critical component of physical exercise, and which kinds work best
• How to rid your brain of negative thoughts, counteract stress, and much more

Full of encouraging anecdotes from Dr. Amen’s many years of experience, Making a Good Brain Great is a positive and practical road map for enriching and improving your own greatest asset—your brain.

©2005 Daniel G. Amen (P)2005 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“This book is wonderful. It gives the reader great understanding and hope that changes in oneself can be made. If you put these changes into action, a happy and healthy brain is yours.” —Bill Cosby

“Each of Daniel Amen’s books contains special nuggets that can be found nowhere else, as well as a wealth of useful, general information that he brings together under one roof. This book offers excellent advice as well as a great deal of new information. An extremely useful and easy-to-read book.” —Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of Delivered from Distraction and The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness

“Making a Good Brain Great is the long-awaited synthesis of a true visionary’s work. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in self-improvement, and especially parents and other caregivers of children—this book is a gem for those of us who want to raise healthy kids.” —Michael Gurian, author of The Minds of Boys and The Wonder of Girls

Nice information

I got this book. By the end I was quite convinced that I was a basket case. His sweeping statements at the end saying "men being crazy and not knowing about it is quite a dangerous statement" and can send a lot of women in the wrong direction.
But otherwise a great book. I would take care of my head from now on and avoid any impact to it.

not what was advertised

this book is mostly a list of parts of the brain and an explanation of what dysfunction of that part of the brain results in. it also ends up being a commercial for functional brain scans, which to no surpise, is what Dr Amen's clinic specializes in. His entire premise is that irregularities in these brain scans result in people's pathologic behavior -- this cause-effect relationship is difficult to prove -- perhaps our pathologic behavior causes the irregular brain scan. Regardless, it is an interesting way of tracking therapy. In the end, I was expecting practical advice to keep our brains healthy. There are some interesting tidbits scattered here and there, but overall it was a list of brain parts, their function, and a lot on herbal remedies. not worth the time (hours) and money it took to listen to it.