Brain Optimization &
Peak Performance
Unlike traditional psychiatry, which rarely looks at the brain, Amen Clinics uses brain-imaging technology to identify brain patterns that may be holding you back from reaching peak performance.
What is Brain Optimization and Peak Performance?
In today’s competitive business environment, you need every edge you can get to achieve your goals and take your career or company to the next level. If you’re like many professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs, you might turn to business coaching, success seminars, and management workshops to discover the strategies that can take you to the top. But there’s one thing virtually none of the most popular success gurus cover in their work, and it’s the most important one—your brain. If you want to enhance creativity, improve performance, sharpen memory, quicken verbal response times, multitask more efficiently, or have better focus and drive, it’s all starts with the organ between your ears.
The Benefits of Brain Optimization
The brain is your control center in the work environment. It is the moment-by-moment functioning of your brain that is responsible for the way you think, feel, act, and interact with others. When your brain is healthy, you’re better able to be goal-oriented, creative, focused, and organized, as well as to ride out stressful situations and be a good decision-maker and effective leader. When your brain is troubled—for whatever reason—you are much more likely to have problems, including issues with planning, focus, organization, memory, stress, and relationships. If you want to land a promotion, gain the confidence to start your own business, or get the salary you deserve, you need to optimize your brain.
When Your Brain Works Right, You Work Right
When you arrive at the office, it is your brain that turns on your computer and either tells you to check the urgent messages from your supervisor, coworkers, or employees or compels you to waste time scrolling through your social media feed. When you speak to a client who has lodged a complaint, it is your brain that helps you speak wisely so you can turn the situation around or say the wrong thing and lose that client forever. In the workplace, it is your brain that allows you to get along with others and work together as a team or that causes friction that holds you back. And when a last-minute project lands in your lap, your ability to cope with the stress without getting frazzled depends on your brain.
An optimized brain can help you
- Get a raise
- Land a promotion
- Gain confidence to start your own business
- Be a better boss
- Think more creatively
- Meet your deadlines
- Take smarter risks
- Reach your full potential
- Give you a competitive edge
- Help you achieve success
Know Your Brain Type
Brain-imaging studies show us that not all brains are alike. In fact, after reviewing nearly 300,000 brain scans at Amen Clinics, we have identified 16 different brain types. Each brain type has unique strengths and weaknesses that influence your performance in the workplace. Knowing your brain type can help you understand more about how you work, perform under pressure, and interact with your supervisors, co-workers, or employees. There are 5 primary brain types, and then 11 brain types that are combinations of the primary ones. You can learn more about the 5 primary brain types below.
Why Choose Amen Clinics for Brain Optimization and Peak Performance?
At Amen Clinics, we use brain SPECT imaging to evaluate the health of your brain and identify areas that would benefit from optimization. When it comes to optimizing your brain for peak performance—overcoming your weaknesses and building on your natural strengths—one size does NOT fit all. We develop a personalized optimization plan based on your specific brain patterns.
NON-OPTIMIZED BRAINS WORK DIFFERENTLY
When your brain has trouble, you’re more likely to have trouble in your life. It’s harder to reach your potential in school, at work, or on the field. A variety of brain-related issues may be holding you back, but how do you know unless you look?
SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) is a nuclear medicine study that evaluates blood flow and activity in the brain. Basically, it shows three things: healthy activity, too little activity, or too much activity. The healthy surface brain SPECT scan on the left, shows full, even symmetrical activity. In the brain scan on the right, there is low activity and damage (possibly from a head injury) in the left frontal and temporal lobes. This can be associated with issues related to memory, moods, learning, and more, which when left unoptimized, can negatively impact performance in school, at work, and in athletics.
Healthy Brain
Non-Optimized Brain Scan
5 Primary Brain Types
Amen Clinics’ brain SPECT imaging work has identified 16 brain types, including 5 primary brain types and 11 combination types. Below are descriptions of the 5 primary types:
Type 1: Balanced Brain
Brain findings: When the brain shows full, even, symmetrical blood flow in most areas, we call it balanced.
Work style: If you have the balanced brain type, you tend to do what you say you’re going to do. You show up on time and follow through on tasks you promise to get done. Typically, you don’t like taking big risks, are not a first adopter, and tended to play in the sandbox as a child. In general, you like rules and tend to play by them.
Common professions: People with the balanced brain type are not likely to be entrepreneurs or industry disruptors. They are more likely to make effective managers.
Possible mental health issues: This brain type tends to be healthy.
Optimization bonus: Boost brainpower to even higher levels for peak performance in every area of your career or business.
Type 2: Spontaneous Brain
Brain findings: If the front part of your brain is lower in activity compared to others, you are more likely to be impulsive and spontaneous.
Work style: In business, this means you tend to be creative, a risk-taker, and an outside-the-box thinker. People with the spontaneous brain type also tend to be impulsive, struggle with organization, are often late or in a rush to meetings, and are prone to miss deadlines.
Common professions: The spontaneous brain type is very common among entrepreneurs, entertainers, politicians, and realtors.
Possible mental health issues: People with the spontaneous brain type are more vulnerable to ADD/ADHD, substance abuse, and depression.
Optimization bonus: Take smarter risks and harness your efforts so you can follow through more effectively on your creative ideas.
Type 3: Persistent Brain
Brain findings: If the front part of your brain is much more active than average, especially in an area called the anterior cingulate gyrus, you tend to worry and be more persistent.
Work style: People with this type are often take-charge people who won’t take no for an answer. You tend to be tenacious and stubborn. In addition, you may worry, have trouble sleeping, be argumentative and oppositional, and hold grudges from the past. You may have trouble shifting gears from one project to another or changing directions to help your business stay relevant in a fluid market.
Common professions: The persistent brain type is common among chief operating officers, project managers, and web engineers.
Possible mental health issues: People with this brain type are more vulnerable to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Optimization bonus: Capitalize on your take-charge style while developing greater flexibility so you can go with the flow and make quick career or business shifts at the most opportune times.
Type 4: Sensitive Brain
Brain findings: If your emotional or limbic brain is more active than average, you tend to be more vulnerable to sadness and be more sensitive.
Work style: People with this type tend to be deeply feeling and empathic, which is a benefit in many professions. However, you may also be more prone to pessimism and struggle with negative thoughts that can prevent you from believing in your ability to get to the next level of success.
Common professions: The sensitive brain type is common among therapists, healthcare professionals, social workers, as well as creative types.
Possible mental health issues: This brain type is more prone to depression, mood disorders, and addiction.
Optimization bonus: Imagine how much more effective you could be if you could break free from negative thinking patterns and embrace a can-do attitude.
Type 5: Cautious Brain
Brain findings: If your amygdala and basal ganglia are more active than average, you tend to be more anxious and cautious.
Work style: People with the cautious brain type tend to be prepared, motivated, and risk averse. You’re the type who shows up 5 minutes early for meetings, tends to have a busy mind and has trouble relaxing.
Common professions: The cautious brain type is common among accountants, researchers, and data analysts.
Possible mental health issues: This brain type has a vulnerability for anxiety.
Optimization bonus: When you free yourself of anxious tendencies, you stop thinking about the fear of failure and open yourself up to greater possibilities.
“With A Better Brain Comes A Better Life”
– Daniel G. Amen, M.D.