Review: This is Your Brain on Joy

As most of you know, we have had a very trying year with all that we faced with our little Michael Z, our oldest daughter getting married, our son-in-law going into the Air Force, and then our daughter moving to Mississippi to be with her husband. I recieved this book to review right in the midst of this "stormy" time in my life. For this reason, along with several others, I sat down to read Dr. Henslin's book with anticipation for help.

As I began to read, however, I found myself to be extremely disappointed. The book, at points, was rather cumbersome. I was not finding the guided help that I was looking for at the time. I found some of the sections to be rather dull and laborious to understan which to me made the book a boring read. Most of the time when I find myself bored with a book I stop reading, but with all I was facing and with searching for answers I pressed on hoping to gain some insight on joy and pain, but to no avail.

Moreover, I found the frequent, and forced references to Dr. Amen, his research, and his available resources to be out of place and irritating. In some places the references were so many that I felt as if I were reading the script for a late night infomercial. "I got all of this joy from my tiny one bedroom apartment, and you can too!"

Dr. Henslin and I disagree on the source of joy. He feels that people don't experience joy because of a sick brain. He is a Dr. and he is looking for a physical problem, however, there are lots of physical ailments that can be caused by things other than the physical. Man is created in the image of God and is created with three parts, body, soul, and spirit, so it goes to say that not everything in a persons life is to be looked at from the physical side. The Apostle Paul said it best in his letter to the Ephesians; For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Eph 6:12) In the past six months, I myself have experienced stress which have caused physical ailments. Did that steal my joy? No because that is not seated in my brain... it is seated in my heart.

I think many times an author will throw in or "seed" their work with Scripture references just to market their work to a different demographic. As for me, if you looking for encouragement and ways to feel more joy in your life, do what I and most other Christians fail to do most of the time when we are facing challenging circumstances and pick up your Bible.