This entertaining tour of the brain answers such fundamental questions suchs as: What is the purpose of the brain? What is an emotion? What is a memory? How does food affect how you feel? Dr. Wenk has skillfully blended the highest scholarly standards with illuminating insights, gentle humor, and welcome simplicity.
In Your Brain on Food, Dr. Gary Wenk expands his discussion of the effects of specific foods on the brain in a completely updated second edition. From investigations into the benefits and risks of supplements, to the action of gluten in the brain and marijuana's potential for pain relief, Dr. Wenk draws on the latest science to answer a range of fascinating questions such as: -Is your aluminum cookware hurting you? -Can tryptophan supplements improve your mood? -How do fruits and vegetables protect us from aging? -Why does eating chocolate make you feel so angry? -Does our brain want us to be obese? Never forget--everything we consume can affect how we think, feel, and act. NEW TO THIS EDITION -Updated second edition greatly expands discussions on the effects of specific foods on the brain -Clarifies the role of biorhythms in how food affects the brain and behavior -Investigates why our brain makes us crave fat, salt, and sugar
Acclaimed neuroscientist Gary Wenk reveals the fascinating impacts of exercise on the brain Decades of research demonstrate that regular modest levels of exercise improve heart and lung function and may relieve joint pain. Regular daily exercise will help your body to regulate blood sugar levels and reduce inflammation, and many of these benefits are a consequence of reducing the amount of body fat you carry around. Your body clearly benefits in many ways from regular exercise. Does your brain benefit as well? Does regular exercise positively affect brain function? Does our thinking become faster because we exercise? Does running a marathon make us smarter? Dr. Gary Wenk's goal is to provide a realistic perspective on what benefits your brain should expect to achieve from exercise. Your Brain on Exercise skillfully blends scholarship with illuminating insights and clarity. Without requiring any specialized knowledge about the brain, Your Brain on Exercise entertainingly illustrates the intersection between brain health, the consequences of exercise, and our need to eat in an entirely new light. An internationally renowned neuroscientist and medical researcher, Dr. Wenk has been educating college and medical students about the brain and lecturing around the world for more than forty years.
Why is eating chocolate so pleasurable? Can the function of just one small group of chemicals really determine whether you are happy or sad? Does marijuana help to improve your memory in old age? Is it really best to drink coffee if you want to wake up and be alert? Why is a drug like PCP potentially lethal? Why does drinking alcohol make you drowsy? Do cigarettes help to relieve anxiety? What should you consume if you are having trouble staying in your chair and focusing enough to get your work done? Why do treatments for the common cold make us drowsy? Can eating less food preserve your brain? What are the possible side effects of pills that claim to make your smarter? Why is it so hard to stop smoking? Why did witches once believe that they could fly? In this book, Gary Wenk demonstrates how, as a result of their effects on certain neurotransmitters concerned with behavior, everything we put into our bodies has very direct consequences for how we think, feel, and act. The chapters introduce each of the main neurotransmitters involved with behavior, discuss its role in the brain, present some background on how it is generally turned on and off, and explain ways to influence it through what we consume.
In Your Brain on Food, Dr. Gary Wenk expands his discussion of the effects of specific foods on the brain in a completely updated second edition. From investigations into the benefits and risks of supplements, to the action of gluten in the brain and marijuana's potential for pain relief, Dr. Wenk draws on the latest science to answer a range of fascinating questions such as: -Is your aluminum cookware hurting you? -Can tryptophan supplements improve your mood? -How do fruits and vegetables protect us from aging? -Why does eating chocolate make you feel so angry? -Does our brain want us to be obese? Never forget--everything we consume can affect how we think, feel, and act. NEW TO THIS EDITION -Updated second edition greatly expands discussions on the effects of specific foods on the brain -Clarifies the role of biorhythms in how food affects the brain and behavior -Investigates why our brain makes us crave fat, salt, and sugar
In Your Brain on Food, Dr. Gary Wenk expands his discussion of the effects of specific foods on the brain in a completely updated second edition. From investigations into the benefits and risks of supplements, to the action of gluten in the brain and marijuana's potential for pain relief, Dr. Wenk draws on the latest science to answer a range of fascinating questions such as: -Is your aluminum cookware hurting you? -Can tryptophan supplements improve your mood? -How do fruits and vegetables protect us from aging? -Why does eating chocolate make you feel so angry? -Does our brain want us to be obese? Never forget--everything we consume can affect how we think, feel, and act. NEW TO THIS EDITION -Updated second edition greatly expands discussions on the effects of specific foods on the brain -Clarifies the role of biorhythms in how food affects the brain and behavior -Investigates why our brain makes us crave fat, salt, and sugar
Draws on new research to answer questions about the effects of specific drugs and foods on the brain, in an updated edition that discusses the role of biorhythms and how drugs interact with the body's biochemistry. --Publisher's description.
What is the principle purpose of a brain? A simple question, but the answer has taken millennia for us to begin to understand. So critical for our everyday existence, the brain still remains somewhat of a mystery. Gary L. Wenk takes us on a tour of what we do know about this enigmatic organ, showing us how the workings of the human brain produce our thoughts, feelings, and fears, and answering questions such as: How did humans evolve such a big brain? What is an emotion and why do we have them? What is a memory and why do we forget so easily? How does your diet affect how you think and feel? What happens when your brain gets old? Throughout human history, ignorance about the brain has caused numerous non-scientific, sometimes harmful interventions to be devised based on interpretations of scientific facts that were misguided. Wenk discusses why these neuroscientific myths are so popular, and why some of the interventions based on them are a waste of time and money. With illuminating insights, gentle humor, and welcome simplicity, The Brain: What Everyone Needs to Know® makes the complex biology of our brains accessible to the general reader.
An internationally renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Wenk has been educating college and medical students about the brain and lecturing around the world for more than forty years. He has published over three hundred publications on the effects of drugs upon the brain. This essential book vividly demonstrates how a little knowledge about the foods and drugs we eat can teach us a lot about how our brain functions. The information is presented in an irreverent and non-judgmental manner that makes it highly accessible to high school teenagers, inquisitive college students and worried parents. Dr. Wenk has skillfully blended the highest scholarly standards with illuminating insights, gentle humor and welcome simplicity. The intersection between brain science, drugs, food and our cultural and religious traditions is plainly illustrated in an entirely new light. Wenk tackles fundamental questions, including: · Why do you wake up tired from a good long sleep and why does your sleepy brain crave coffee and donuts? · How can understanding a voodoo curse explain why it is so hard to stop smoking? · Why is a vegetarian or gluten-free diet not always the healthier option for the brain? · How can liposuction improve brain function? · What is the connection between nature's hallucinogens and religiosity? · Why does marijuana impair your memory now but protect your memory later in life? · Why do some foods produce nightmares? · What are the effects of diet and obesity upon the brains of infants and children? · Are some foods better to eat after traumatic brain injury?
Decades of research has demonstrated that regular exercise improves heart and lung function and may relieve joint pain. Daily exercise will help your body to regulate blood sugar levels and reduce inflammation; many of these benefits are a consequence of reducing the amount of body fat you carry around. Your body clearly benefits in many ways from regular exercising. Does the brain benefit as well? Yes, the brain does care whether you exercise, just not always for the reasons that you might think. The brain benefits the most when you perform activities that it evolved to perform--to move around your environment with purpose, not for diversion or sport. Your brain benefits when the movement addresses its unique evolutionary priorities. In order for exercise to influence the brain, the muscles involved must somehow communicate with it. Actively contracting skeletal muscles communicate with the brain, as well as many other organs, by releasing chemical messengers into the blood. During the past few years, many muscle-derived chemical messengers have been discovered. So many, in fact, that your muscles might be more accurately viewed as one of your endocrine glands, similar to your adrenal or thyroid glands. The actions of some of these chemical messengers on your brain, and whether these actions are direct or indirect, beneficial or not, is the focus of this book"--
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