Principles of Brain Management: A Practical Approach to Making the Most of Your Brain

By Ilchi Lee

Every human being’s brain has the ability to adapt to new environments and to learn throughout life. But, like a muscle, if the brain isn’t used on a regular basis, it simply will lose its abilities. This book guides readers to take control of their brains through five simple steps.

Drawing from his world-renown Brain Education method, Ilchi Lee provides simple techniques, such as mindful walking, emotional renewal exercises, and basic stress management strategies, to release the brain’s creative and cognitive potential. This book will help you:

- Gain a sense of empowerment over your brain
- Understand the significance of your brain in your life.
- Create more positive, life-affirming habits
- Unlock your brain's true potential.
- Live with a greater sense of hope and fulfillment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Best Life Media
• Release date: Aug 22, 2009
• ISBN: 9781935127147

Ilchi Lee

Ilchi Lee is a respected educator, mentor, author, and trailblazer devoted to developing the awakened brain and teaching energy principles. For the past thirty years, Lee has dedicated his life to helping people become the authors of their lives by harnessing the creative power of the human brain. He has developed many mind-body training methods, including Dahn Yoga and Brain Education. Since his first visit to Sedona in the 1990s, Lee has shared the messages and spirit he has received from this special land. He is the founder of Sedona Mago Retreat, a place for spiritual awakening and holistic learning, located in the wilderness of Arizona’s red rock country. For more information, visit Ilchi.com.

Book preview

PRINCIPLES OF BRAIN MANAGEMENT

PRINCIPLES OF BRAIN MANAGEMENT

A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR BRAIN

ILCHI LEE

BEST Life Media

6560 Highway 179, Suite 114

Sedona, AZ 86351

www.bestlifemedia.com

1-877-504-1106

Copyright © 2007 by Ilchi Lee

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be produced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First paperback edition: September 2007

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007936251

ISBN-10: 0-9799388-0-5

ISBN-13: 978-0-9799388-0-1

If you are unable to order this book from your local bookseller, you may order through www.amazon.com or www.bestlifemedia.com.

The brain gives the heart its sight.

The heart gives the brain its vision.

—Rob Kall, biofeedback pioneer

Content

Introduction

Your Brain Is Your Life

You Are the Master of Your Brain

An Evolutionary Masterpiece

Five Steps to Brain Mastery

1. Coming Back to Your Senses

Manage Your Stress

Practice: Know Thyself

Use All Your Senses

Practice: Wide-Awake Walking

Move Your Body

Practice: Stretch It Out

Center Yourself

Practice: Blind Balance

Breathe Well

Practice: Belly Breathing

Unify Your Mind and Body

Practice: Energy Ball

2. Flexing Your Gray Matter

Surprise Your Brain

Practice: See Both Sides

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Practice: Rock, Paper, Scissors, BrainBreak

Your Habits

Practice: 21-day Challenge

Redefine Creativity

Practice: The Architect of Happiness

Create Your Life

Practice: Foundation of Desire

3. Cleaning Out the Attic

Look Within

Practice: Turning It Outside In

Let Go of the Rubbish

Practice: Breathing Out Emotions

Empower Your Smile

Practice: Give Smiling a Chance

Use Your Emotion Well

Practice: Positive Reinforced

Zero In on Nothingness

Practice: Seeing in the Raw

4. Connecting the Dots

Seek Fulfillment

Practice: What the World Needs Now

Choose Your Identity

Practice: Corporeal Identity

Set a Lofty Goal

Practice: Vision Meditation

Plan for Success

Practice: PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act)

Be Truthful

Practice: The Ritual of Self-Reflection

5. Seeing the Big Picture

View Obstacles as Blessings

Practice: Counting Your Other Blessings

Step Beyond Your Limits

Practice: Push-up Your Confidence

Develop a Lofty Character

Practice: Brain Supermodels

Trust Your Brain

Practice: Alternate Uses

Play Well with Others

Practice: Peace Is Possible

Appendix

The Five Steps of BEST

BEST 5 Philosophical and Scientific Background

Suggested Reading

Index

About the Author

Also by this Author

Your Brain Is Your Life

Have you ever stopped to realize that you owe everything you are to your brain?

If someone asks you who you are, what do you say? Maybe you say something like, My name is John. I am a twenty-seven-year-old man of African descent, and I currently work as an elementary school teacher in Dallas, Texas. Instinctively, you and John both know that there is much more to you. John loves most of all to be in the presence of great art. The hair on the nape of his neck stands up when he smells freshly fallen rain. Both of you have experienced a great range of love and suffering throughout your life. How can one name or one identity sum up all of this?

All these things do have one thing in common, however—they were generated through the brain. John’s brain enabled him to become a school teacher, and it is through his brain that he feels awe when standing before a powerful painting. A symphony of sensory input and memory within his brain gives rise to his reaction to freshly fallen rain. It is also within his brain that he stores his definition of what it means to be a man, twenty-seven years old, and African-American.

In some sense, you could say that you are your brain. Or, at the very least, the brain is the instrument through which you experience all reality. And it is through it that you interact with reality—in every emotional reaction, in every choice that you make, and in every dream that you dream. Everything you ever have been or will become is because of your brain.

The conditions of your life at the present moment are also dependent on the condition of your brain. If you love the conditions of your life, you must use your brain to help you maintain that life. If you want to change the conditions of your life, it will also require effective use of your brain.

You Are the Master of Your Brain

The great news is that you have infinite power to change and refine your brain. A few decades back, scientists thought that people could have very little influence over their brains. It was assumed that by the time people reached adulthood their brain connections were permanently and indelibly in place. In childhood, one might be able to exert some influence over the development of the brain, but for the most part these things were genetically determined. It was thought that the old adage You can’t teach an old dog new tricks was literally true.

More recently, scientists have discovered that the opposite is true. There is a quality to the brain called neuroplasticity that allows you, right up to the end of your life, to restructure and adapt your brain according to