Super Brain
Authors: Rudolph E. Tanzi
ALSO BY RUDOLPH E. TANZI
Decoding Darkness
(with coauthor Ann B. Parson)
ALSO BY DEEPAK CHOPRA
Creating Health
Return of the Rishi
Quantum Healing
Perfect Health
Unconditional Life
Journey into Healing
Creating Affluence
Perfect Weight
Restful Sleep
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
The Return of Merlin
Boundless Energy
Perfect Digestion
The Way of the Wizard
Overcoming Addictions
Raid on the Inarticulate
The Path to Love
The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents
The Love Poems of Rumi
(edited by Deepak Chopra; translated
by Deepak Chopra and Fereydoun Kia)
Healing the Heart
Everyday Immortality
The Lords of Light
The Soul in Love
How to Know God
On the Shores of Eternity
The Chopra Center Herbal Handbook
(with coauthor David Simon)
Grow Younger, Live Longer
(with coauthor David Simon)
The Deeper Wound
The Chopra Center Cookbook
(coauthored by David
Simon and Leanne Backer)
The Angel Is Near
The Daughters of Joy
Golf for Enlightenment
Soulmate
The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
Peace Is the Way
The Book of Secrets
Fire in the Heart
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga
(with coauthor David Simon)
Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives
(coauthored by David Simon and Vicki Abrams)
Life After Death
Buddha
The Essential How to Know God
The Essential Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
The Essential Ageless Body, Timeless Mind
The Third Jesus
Jesus
Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul
The Ultimate Happiness Prescription
Muhammad
The Soul of Leadership
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes
(with coauthor Gotham Chopra)
Consciousness in the Universe: Quantum Physics
,
Evolution, Brain and Mind
(with Stuart Hameroff and
Sir Roger Penrose)
War of the Worldviews
(with coauthor Leonard Mlodinow)
Spiritual Solutions
God: A Story of Revelation
FOR CHILDREN
On My Way to a Happy Life
(with Kristina Tracy,
illustrated by Rosemary Woods)
You with the Stars in Your Eyes
(illustrated by Dave Zaboski)
Copyright © 2012 by Deepak Chopra and
Rudolph E. Tanzi All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Harmony Books,
an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.
Harmony Books and colophon are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available upon request eISBN: 978-0-30795684-2
Book illustrations by Tam Nguyen
Jacket design by Michael Nagin
Jacket photography: I-Works/AmanaImagesRF/Getty Images
v3.1_r1
To our wives and loving families
CONTENTS
PART 1
DEVELOPING YOUR GREATEST GIFT
Super Brain Solutions:
MEMORY LOSS
Super Brain Solutions:
DEPRESSION
Super Brain Solutions:
OVERWEIGHT
Super Brain Solutions:
ANXIETY
Super Brain Solutions:
PERSONAL CRISES
Super Brain Solutions:
FINDING YOUR POWER
Super Brain Solutions:
SELF-HEALING
Super Brain Solutions:
MAXIMUM LONGEVITY
Super Brain Solutions:
MAKING GOD REAL
Super Brain Solutions:
WELL-BEING
Rudy’s Epilogue:
LOOKING AT ALZHEIMER’S WITH HOPE AND LIGHT
Deepak’s Epilogue:
BEYOND BOUNDARIES
Aristotle taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons
.
—Will Cuppy
PART 1
DEVELOPING
YOUR
GREATEST
GIFT
A GOLDEN AGE
FOR THE BRAIN
W
hat do we really know about the human brain? In the 1970s and 1980s, when the authors gained their training, the honest answer was “very little.” There was a saying circulating back then: Studying the brain was like putting a stethoscope on the outside of the Astrodome to learn the rules of football.
Your brain contains roughly 100 billion nerve cells forming anywhere from a trillion to perhaps even a quadrillion connections called synapses. These connections are in a constant, dynamic state of remodeling in response to the world around you. As a marvel of nature, this one is minuscule and yet stupendous.
Everyone stands in awe of the brain, which was once dubbed “the three-pound universe.” And rightly so. Your brain not only interprets the world, it creates it. Everything you see, hear, touch, taste, and smell would have none of those qualities without the brain. Whatever you experience today—your morning coffee, the love you feel for your family, a brilliant idea at work—has been specifically customized solely for you.
Immediately we confront a crucial issue. If your world is unique and customized for you and you alone, who is behind such remarkable creativity, you or the brain itself? If the answer is you, then the door to
greater creativity is flung open. If the answer is
your brain
, then there may be drastic physical limitations on what you are able to achieve. Maybe your genes are holding you back, or toxic memories, or low self-esteem. Maybe you fall short because of limited expectations that have contracted your awareness, even though you don’t see it happening.
The facts of the case could easily tell both stories, of unlimited potential or physical limitation. Compared with the past, today science is amassing new facts with astonishing speed. We have entered a golden age of brain research. New breakthroughs emerge every month, but in the midst of such exciting advances, what about the individual, the person who depends upon the brain for everything? Is this a golden age for
your
brain?
We detect an enormous gap between brilliant research and everyday reality. Another medical school saying from the past comes to mind: Each person typically uses only 10 percent of their brain. Speaking literally, that’s not true. In a healthy adult, the brain’s neural networks operate at full capacity all the time. Even the most sophisticated brain scans available would show no detectable difference between Shakespeare writing a soliloquy from
Hamlet
and an aspiring poet writing his first sonnet. But the physical brain is not nearly the whole story.
To create a golden age for your brain, you need to use the gift nature has given you in a new way. It’s not the number of neurons or some magic inside your gray matter that makes life more vital, inspiring, and successful. Genes play their part, but your genes, like the rest of the brain, are also dynamic. Every day you step into the invisible firestorm of electrical and chemical activity that is the brain’s environment. You act as leader, inventor, teacher, and user of your brain, all at once.
As leader, you hand out the day’s orders to your brain.
As inventor, you create new pathways and connections inside your brain that didn’t exist yesterday.
As teacher, you train your brain to learn new skills.
As user, you are responsible for keeping your brain in good working order.
In these four roles lies the whole difference between the everyday brain—let’s dub it the baseline brain—and what we are calling super brain. The difference is immense. Even though you have not related to the brain by thinking
What orders should I give today?
or
What new pathways do I want to create?
that’s precisely what you are doing. The customized world that you live in needs a creator. The creator isn’t your brain; it’s you.
Super brain stands for a fully aware creator using the brain to maximum advantage. Your brain is endlessly adaptable, and you could be performing your fourfold role—leader, inventor, teacher, and user—with far more fulfilling results than you now achieve.