Deep Dive into Best-Selling Author John J. Ratey's Books "Spark, Go Wild and Driven to Distraction."

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #118 with a deep dive into John J. Ratey’s most recent books including the groundbreaking ADHD “Driven to Distraction” with Dr. Edward (Ned) Hallowell, MD, "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain" that established Dr. Ratey as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the brain-fitness connection and “Go Wild”, that explores how we can achieve optimal physical and mental health by getting in touch with our roots. During our interview together on EPISODE #116[i], we barely scratched the surface of these three books, so I wanted to take the time to dive a bit deeper into each one of them, keeping in mind the top 5 health staples that we focused on with episode #87.[ii] Dr. Ratey’s interview was insightful and many people from around the world emailed me with feedback about how timely and inspiring they thought Dr. Ratey’s research was, especially with where we are in the world today. Dr. Ratey said himself, “If we are going to have to learn to live with COVID, we’re going to have to learn to be well.” (Episode #116) and I thought about how our podcast took a turn from just focusing on social and emotional skills and neuroscience to a serious focus on the importance of health, around Season 3 and episode #71 (which was July 2020-right in the middle of the Pandemic) when I first started to study Dr. Shane Creado, from Dr. Daniel Amen’s offices on the importance of sleep[iii].  It seems to me that we can’t ask our students in our classrooms, or employees in our workplaces to focus on social, interpersonal, emotional or cognitive skills, without first, putting an emphasis on health. The more I Iearned in this area, the more convinced I became of the mind-brain-body connection that inspired me to take a trip to Dr. Amen’s Clinics in Costa Mesa, CA for a brain scan to see what we could learn to improve the health of my family and share these findings on the podcast. After the 3 episodes where I covered the importance of getting your brain scanned,[iv] there was one person who was integral to me meeting new people in the area of health and wellness and that was Luke DePron, the host of the Live Great Lifestyle Podcast[v] from episode #90.[vi] Luke and I became friends through LinkedIn, and I immediately asked if he would come on the podcast as a guest.  Although health is my number one value, and something I block time off each day for, I knew there was so much more that I needed to learn in this area.  We only know what we know, and after looking at Luke’s podcast, I was blown away. I highly recommend going to his website[vii] and looking thorough his episodes. I knew there was so much more I needed to learn in this area, and you will find many different topics that go really deep into the area of health and wellness through Luke’s podcast. After an incredible interview, it was Luke DePron who referred me to Dr. Erik Won and the Wave Neuroscience Team for episode #89[viii], Momo Vuyisich, from episode #93.[ix] and Dr. Daniel Stickler, for episode #96.[x] All of these interviews stretched me to think beyond what I knew before in the area of health and wellness and Luke’s podcast helped me to do this. Then, around September of 2020, after watching Dr. David Perlmutter’s Alzheimer’s: The Science of Prevention Series[xi], I began thinking of who I could get to fill in interviews to cover these top 5 health staples that kept appearing everywhere. I knew I could ask Dr. Shane Creado[xii] to cover the importance of sleep, but I had no idea that he would urge me and my husband to get our brains scanned through Amen Clinics and lead us to a whole new level of understanding of our health. Jason Whittrock from episode #94[xiii] was someone I had followed for a few years on social media, and he really left the impression on me that he was there to help people to get in shape and stay in shape. He just seemed genuine, so I sent