This is Your Brain on Joy

I just wrapped up the book This is Your Brain on Joy by Earl Henslin. It’s my first book that I’ve reviewed as part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers program. I’m breaking the rules on this review, so this will also probably be my last review in the program.

Honestly, the worst part of the book is the cover. It took me a while to get past all the flowers and the depression and anxiety I experienced thinking I was reading a woman’s book. Once I got started, though, I quickly learned that the book is for everyone…including people like me who have a tendency to wrestle with depression and anxiety.

Henslin’s goal in the book is to help us take steps towards brain health so we can experience joy in our lives. The best part of the book, though, is that Henslin is a Christ-follower yet he doesn’t over-spiritualize our brain issues. (We all have them by the way.) Yes, some of how we are raised impacts our joy. Yes, sin in our lives can impact our joy. But, our brain health, which is also impacted be those two things, also impacts our joy.

Henslin uses the latest research in brain science and brain imaging to help us understand how we can experience joy and happiness. What you thought was a spiritual challenge – anger, depression, mood swings, anxiety, addictions – may also be the result of a sick brain that cannot comprehend a good and loving God.

Here are some of the highlights of the book that grabbed my attention:

• “Only God knows how much of our wrongdoing is the result of pure rebellion or evil intent and how much is caused by brain imbalances.”
• “Tragically, too often in religious circles we’ve been trying to pray away or spiritualize a brain problem—assuming (however well-intentioned) that we or someone else has a sin problem. Or a character flaw. Or a root of bitterness. Or, worse, a demon.”
• “There really isn’t such a thing as a normal brain.”
• “All our brains are uniquely wired. Some of our wiring gifts us with a basic emotional set point that includes mostly thoughts and feelings of happiness and peace and basic sanity. Sadly, however, some of us are wired to experience more anxiety, anger, or depression.”
• “Doctors, scientists, and researchers have been so impressed by how prayer changes brain and body chemistry for the better that many hospitals are incorporating and encouraging prayer for their patients as an adjunct to traditional healing therapies.”
• “It can now be proven that human beings literally change their own brain makeup and that this process continues (as long as you continue to learn and grow) until the day you die.”
• “Life itself was meant to be our original natural high.”
• “Surrounding yourself with positive people who believe in and champion your dreams is vital to bouncing back from sorrow or stress into joy.”
• “Human connection studies show a greater rise in pure happiness than when you are involved, in some way, in voluntarily helping someone else.”
• “The happiest people tend to give more money to charity. It didn’t matter how much they earned—across the board low- and high-income families who gave a part of their money to help someone else were much happier.”
• “People who have more activity in the right half of their brains have less control over negativity and tend to walk on the pessimistic side of life’s street. Therefore, they are often introverts who are more paranoid, get depressed more easily, and find that happiness often eludes them.”
• “The practice of forgiveness has been shown to reduce anger, hurt, depression, and stress, and leads to greater feelings of hope, peace, compassion, and self-confidence.”
• “The Scriptures speak of ‘taking every thought captive’ (2 Cor. 2:5 NASB) and ‘the renewing of your mind’ (Rom. 12:2). One way to do this is to exchange our worries for God’s reassurances.”
• “We cannot always believe our thoughts, for our thoughts often lie to us when our chemistry is off balance.”
• “The famous preacher Charles Spurgeon struggled so severely with depression that he was forced to be absent from his pulpit for two to three months a year.”
• “If life were perfect, it wouldn’t be life; it would be heaven.”
• “Scientists have discovered that when we are actively blessing others or saying thanks to God for his many gifts to our lives, the neuron path to worry and fear is literally blocked. You can’t be grateful and anxious at the same time.”

This was a fascinating book. It gave me a whole new perspective on why people (including me) act the way they act and think the way they think. You would really benefit from checking it out. God created our brains. Unfortunately, since we are human, they aren’t perfect.