Change Your Brain, Change Your Life (Revised and Expanded): The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Lack of Focus, Anger, and Memory Problems Paperback – November 3, 2015

Dr. Amen has written a very readable, almost-500 pages long, book explaining his research and methodologies for helping ordinary people with brain related health issues. By training he is an MD with a specialty in psychiatry. However, he makes it very clear that, in most cases, historically psychiatrists have been prescribing medication often based on pure guess-work up till now.He has developed a novel approach to scanning a patient's brain to determine which particular areas appear to be receiving either too much input, or too little.Currently he has five clinics across America (Costa Mesa, Ca, Brisbane, Ca, Bellevue, Was, Reston, Va and Atlanta, GA). With over twenty years of using his approach to guide teams of medical doctors, psychiatrists and nutritionists they have thousands of brain scans illustrating almost all types of challenging brain-related issues.Dr. Amen has also collaborated with Faith groups, Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, to create The Daniel Plan to use Faith, Food, Fitness and Friends to help the world get healthier, in collaboration with well-known health advocate, Dr. Mark Hyman (p. xv).His brain scan, SPECT, is a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood flow and activity of areas in the brain. It will also show whether a person has had injuries from accidents or sports.The methodology and the treatments that have evolved have helped an increasing number of people, among them parents with children who suffer from learning disorders related to ADD/ADHD, children who have had head injuries and subsequent notable changes in behavior, couples who have been brought to the brink of divorce due to behavior and perception struggles, and people with severe depression challenges (p. 23).Dr. Amen cautions that, as in all cutting edge research, not all scientists agree with his findings, but notes that their evolving treatments are based on more than two decades of clinical data and observations. He states that a follow-up study with patients suffering from a combination of ADD, depression, anxiety and addiction, 84% reported that they functioned better after the Amen treatment (p.43).From an Education Profession perspective of watching an increasing number of our students appearing with attention-deficits disorders and autism spectrum issues most educational professionals would probably agree that, for many such parents, a consult and a brain scan might be preferable to watching their child face a life with diminishing skills and joy.For an increasing number of elderly people who are facing diminishing lives due to escalating incidents of Alzheimer brain incapacity, a consult and a brain scan might be worth an ounce of prevention.For people with a life history of taking responsibility for their own health, a consult and a brain scan may also become as useful as an annual heart and blood pressure exam.Dr. Amen and his teams have developed a well balanced paradigm and treatment protocol that includes both traditional medication as well as health based remedies such as 5-HTP, inositol, green tea, rhodiola, L-tyrosine, DHEA, SAMe, vitamin D, GABA, B6, magnesium, huperzine A, acetyl-L-carnitine, vinpocentine, and ginko biloba for issues related to addiction, depression, cravings, impulsivity and learning disabilities (p.292).The book was made endearing to readers by the inclusion of many case-narratives; it's not an intimidating 500-page medical research paper. The book may become a comforting go-to encyclopedic reference tool that is further extended by back-up website materials for many struggling parents, individuals and couples who have failed to find practical medical help for themselves, their family or their children.

This book is good. Dr Amen has sought to find physical evidence - within brain scans - of mental illness and of some awful states of mind such as depression. From the pictures of the scans, it's possible to see areas of the brain inflamed or inactive -in certain states- followed by the pictures of the same brain after treatment (medicine).As a mental health professional, and a sufferer of depression and ADD (inattentive type) this book has been extremely interesting and thought provoking. It actually convinced me that I need to treat my depression. I never let this affect my work, it's always been there is the background haunting and hounding. Depression is an insidious and awful illness of the brain which affects every aspect of the lives of those who suffer from it. Before reading this I had been insistent on fixing my depression through psychological means only, believing that I should be able up fix myself by changing the way that I think. Maybe this is a part of my perfectionist tendency, the idea that I should not NEED a medicine to make me feel normal. However I now know that that's probably wrong. I do need a medicine, to get my brain to a more normal state, after the changes done to it throughout years of (relatively mild) neglect during my childhood. I now see that certain parts of my brain will be either overactive or underactive permanently, which of course affects the brain chemistry and serotonin levels etc. This also had the effect of ADD, however I can live with this more easily.Anyway back to the book. Apparently this book is controversial and psychiatrists don't support the claims he makes. I don't know the details of this and why, however no psychiatrist (I work with them) has ever provided such a solid reason as to why anyone should use medicine to treat these illnesses as Dr Amen has. Seeing the physical proof is extremely beneficial and helpful.THe debate about ADD / ADHD is a complex one and I'm less convinced about the purpose of treating such illnesses - i think there is a factor of trying to force people to fit in to a society that is skewed already, but that's another story.Anyhow I'd like to see more debate about this subject and the reasons why these types of scan are not more routinely used to see which areas are over our under active. If you are having battles within yourself about whether medicine can help you, you may find this book very interesting and helpful, and it can help you find the right medicine within a group (eg antidepressants) rather than wait and see which one your doctor will be favoring this week.