Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted

DR. Daniel G. Amen

Fifty percent of the brain is dedicated to vision. How you look plays a large role in how you feel.
Both matter to your success at work and in your relationships. It is not just vanity, it is about
health. To look and feel your best, you must first think about and optimize your brain.
I live in Newport Beach, California. We have often been called the plastic society, because we have
more plastic walking around our streets and beaches than almost anywhere else in the world. One of
my friends says that God will never flood Newport Beach because all of the women will float. Most
people throughout the world, not just in Newport Beach, care more about their faces, their boobs,
their bellies, their butts, and their abs than they do their brains. But it is your brain that is
the key to having the face, the breasts, the belly, the butt, the abs, and the overall health you
have always wanted; and it is brain dysfunction, in large part, that ruins our bodies and causes
premature aging. It is your brain that decides to get you out of bed in the morning to exercise,
to give you a stronger, leaner body, or to cause you to hit the snooze button and procrastinate
your workout. It is your brain that pushes you away from the table telling you that you have had
enough, or that gives you permission to have the second bowl of Rocky Road ice cream, making you
look and feel like a blob. It is your brain that manages the stress in your life and relaxes you
so that you look vibrant, or, when left unchecked, sends stress signals to the rest of your body
and wrinkles your skin. And it is your brain that turns away cigarettes, too much caffeine, and
alcohol, helping you look and feel healthy, or that gives you permission to smoke, to have that
third cup of coffee, or to drink that third glass of wine, thus making every system in your body
look and feel older. Your brain is the command and control center of your body. If you want
a better body, the first place to ALWAYS start is by having a better brain. My interest in the
brain-body connection started more than thirty years ago. As a college student, my thinking was
influenced by the work of O. Carl Simonton, the oncologist who taught people to use visualization
to boost their immune system in order to fight cancer. In medical school, I became trained in the
use of medical hypnosis and began to see the powerful effect it can have on healing the body.
I personally saw that it was helpful for treating headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, pain, weight
loss, insomnia, a Parkinsonian tremor, and heart arrhythmias. I then became trained in a treatment
technique called biofeedback and found that when I taught my patients to use their brains to warm
their hands or breathe with their bellies, their whole body went into a relaxed state, which was
helpful in decreasing stress, lowering blood pressure, and combating headaches.

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