Preface

Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

Can you relate to any of these people?

Steve, a 60-year-old father and CEO, lost both his father and grandfather to Alzheimer’s disease. Steve was terrified he’d get it too, because he noticed his own memory was slipping.

Joelle, 42, had no filter. She just said whatever came to her mind, which tended to hurt other people’s feelings.

Jim, 61, was a very successful businessman who had overcome addictions, as well as growing up with attention deficit disorder and dyslexia. After he got into a bad car accident, his memory became worse, his behavior changed, and he started to engage in habits that nearly cost him his family.

Sherman, 71, had been under a great deal of work-related stress for years and had started to struggle with memory, decision making, and anxiety. He frequently woke up in the middle of the night.

Todd, 53, a busy, stressed-out executive, was really struggling with his memory. He frequently misplaced things and hoped it was just part of normal aging. Secretly, he suspected something might be wrong.

Sarah, a 62-year-old grandmother of six, worried because her memory had started to fail. Several months before she came to Amen Clinics, she had a ministroke that left her transiently paralyzed on her right side. Her faith was critically important to her, and she wanted to pass it on to her grandchildren. However, she was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to if she lost her memory.

Bud, 52, was concerned about his memory, focus, and energy. His mother had died of Alzheimer’s disease, and he had a wife 20 years younger than he was and two children, ages five and seven.

Jasmine, 26, couldn’t get out of the funk she had been in for more than a year. She was depressed, anxious, and obsessive. She had to drop out of her PhD program in clinical psychology because she couldn’t focus or remember. Five antidepressants and three therapists later, she was giving up hope.

Shawn, 35, broke his neck in four places in a surfing accident. After a remarkable physical recovery, he noticed his mood, memory, and cognition failing him. He was having suicidal thoughts when he first came to see us.

Lew, 67, was a navy pilot and instructor for 40 years. He had to stop flying because he was not able to think through his flight plans. He and his wife were shocked when he made a mistake regarding some finances, causing a significant loss.

David, 62, had become a recluse. His doctor had recently diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s disease. After beginning a new medication, he seemed confused.

Jesse, 42, had recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She struggled with her mood and memory. She had been put on immune-suppressing drugs, but the side effects made her feel terrible.

Anita, 38, thrived for years in her roles as a teacher and mom of three. Then suddenly she began feeling exhausted, sad, and forgetful. She couldn’t sleep well and had little energy. Nothing she tried seemed to boost her energy level or mood.

Kyle, a 51-year-old CEO, was successful in leading his family’s meatpacking business, but he was not doing well personally. He had diabetes and sleep apnea, and he wasn’t following his doctor’s treatment plan.

You will meet all these people in Memory Rescue. Over the past 30 years, people with stories like these, plus tens of thousands of others, have come to Amen Clinics for help. They all have had one thing in common: The physical functioning of their brains needed improvement. Through a series of events in my life, it has become my mission to help people have better brains and better lives.

At 18, I was trained as an infantry medic in the US Army, where my love of medicine was born. While still in the service, I became an X-ray technician and developed a passion for medical imaging. As our professors used to say, “How do you know unless you look?” Then, when I was a second-year medical student, someone I loved tried to kill herself. I arranged for her to meet with an outstanding psychiatrist and came to realize that if he helped her (which he did), he would ultimately help her children and grandchildren, too, because they would be influenced by someone who was happier and more stable. I was drawn to psychiatry because I realized its potential to change generations of people for the better.

Yet psychiatry then, and even now, remains the only medical specialty that virtually never looks at the organ it treats —the brain. Frustrated, I decided to learn more about brain imaging tools, which have revolutionized my life and the lives of my patients, coworkers, family members, and friends. I first learned about SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) during a lecture conducted by the chief of medicine at our local hospital in 1991. Convinced that such imaging could provide invaluable information, my colleagues and I adopted the technique and began building a database of brain scans related to behavior. Today it is the world’s largest database, totaling more than 135,000 scans on patients from 111 countries taken over the past 25-plus years.

Ultimately, the scans led me to five conclusions:

Brain health is central to all health and success in life. When your brain works right, you are happier, healthier (because you make better decisions), wealthier (again because you make better decisions), and more successful in everything you do.

When your brain is troubled, for whatever reason, you are likely to be sadder, sicker, poorer, and less successful.

You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better, even if you have been bad to it —and I can prove it. This has been the most exciting lesson of my professional life, and it is one of the main topics in this book.

To save your brain, you have to get your mind right. Too many people give themselves excuses to stay sick. I call them the “little lies” that keep them fat, depressed, and feeble-minded. Here are the most common justifications I’ve heard over the years, along with my responses to patients.

LITTLE LIES	RESPONSE
This will be hard.	Focusing on getting well is dramatically easier than being sick or losing your mind. Initially change is hard because the brain hates change and likes to do what it has always done. But with the right attitude and strategies, it can be very rewarding.
I don’t want to deprive myself.	When you make poor health decisions, you are robbing yourself of what you really want —energy, memory, and good health. Getting well is about abundance, never deprivation. Memory Rescue will help you avoid hypertension, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, and dementia.
It is too expensive.	Being sick is much more expensive than thoughtfully spending your resources to get and stay well. With a better-functioning brain, you will have more money because the quality of your decisions will be better.
I don’t have time.	Spending time and energy to optimize your brain will help you live longer and be cognitively sharper, giving you much more time overall.
Everything in moderation. Just a little can’t hurt.	This is the gateway thought to illness. It is generally an excuse to justify doing something unhealthy. “Just a little can’t hurt” leads to just one more cigarette, one more piece of cake, etc.

You are in a war for the health of your brain. Just about everywhere you go, you are offered toxic food that will kill you early. The real “weapons of mass destruction” are highly processed, pesticide-sprayed, high-glycemic, low-fiber food-like substances in plastic containers. Such fare is destroying the health of America: Two-thirds of us are overweight or obese; 50 percent are diabetic or prediabetic; and 60 percent are hypertensive or prehypertensive —all conditions that damage the brain. In addition, news channels repeatedly pour toxic images into our minds, stoking our fear that disaster is everywhere and constantly exposing our brains to stress chemicals that can damage our brains’ memory centers. Technology companies continually produce addictive gadgets that steal our attention and distract us from our loved ones. According to a study from Microsoft, the human attention span is now eight seconds; a goldfish’s is nine seconds.[3]

For three decades, my staff and I have been at war, too, seeking to restore the mental health and brain health of thousands of people who’ve come to Amen Clinics. Just a few years ago, my staff and I began referring to those patients who took up the fight themselves as brain warriors.

To rescue your memory, you must counteract the dangers to your health. You must become a brain warrior.

Throughout the book, I will tell you about brain warriors who’ve embraced a healthier mind-set and changed their lifestyle habits to save their own brains and those of the people they love. In this book, I’ll tell you how to become a brain warrior and a memory rescuer, too.

That’s because one of the most important symptoms of an unhealthy brain is memory problems. Once your memory starts to slip, everything in your life becomes harder, including your health, relationships, work, and finances. Such problems can even strip you of your independence. Let me be clear: I love my children very much, but I never want to live with them. I never want to be a burden to them, and I would prefer they not make decisions for me. I don’t want them taking my driver’s license from me or deciding what I’ll wear and eat. If that is true for you, too, it means you need to think about your brain now, not 20 years from now. The truly exciting news is that you can start to change your brain and memory, beginning today.

Join me on a fascinating and important journey into improving your brain, memory, and life.