In Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot, eminent neuropsychiatrist and bestselling author Richard Restak, M.D., combines the latest research in neurology and psychology to show us how to get our brain up to speed for managing every aspect of our busy lives.

Everything we think and everything we choose to do alters our brain and fundamentally changes who we are, a process that continues until the end of our lives. Few people think of the brain as being susceptible to change in its actual structure, but in fact we can preselect the kind of brain we will have by continually exposing ourselves to rich and varied life experiences. Unlike other organs that eventually wear out with repeated and sustained use, the brain actually improves the more we challenge it.

Most of us incorporate some kind of physical exercise into our daily lives. We do this to improve our bodies and health and generally make us feel better. Why not do the same for the brain? The more we exercise it, the better it performs and the better we feel. Think of Restak as a personal trainer for your brain—he will help you assess your mental strengths and weaknesses, and his entertaining book will set you to thinking about the world and the people around you in a new light, providing you with improved and varied skills and capabilities. From interacting with colleagues to recognizing your own psychological makeup, from understanding the way you see something to why you’re looking at it in the first place, from explaining the cause of panic attacks to warding off performance anxiety, this book will tell you the whys and hows of the brain’s workings.

Packed with practical advice and fascinating examples drawn from history, literature, and science, Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot provides twenty-eight informative and realistic steps that we can all take to improve our brainpower.

Examples of this mixed style:
- Very prescriptive statements: "you should play chess if you want to keep a sharp mind"; "the only way to..."; and a proclivity for great books as being the only books worth reading
- The exercises he suggested are rarely validated by experimental proof.
- Offers specifics where none are needed - "If you are over 35 and you pull your skin back towards your face you will look 10 years younger."

As a last note, I felt the title was misleading. I was looking for more detailed anecdotes about how various types of people's brains worked. The example of Mozart, however, barely covered two pages.

Enjoyable, entertaining, but also frustrating.

62 of 68 found the following review helpful:


Use it or lose it.  Jan 05, 2002
Dr. Restak provides 28 ideas in 28 chapters for maintaining an alert mind. Many of the ideas are simply motherhood and apple pie recommendations - reduce stress, concentrate, exercise, etc. And while there are some interesting insights on how the brain works, based on PET scans and recent research, Dr. Restak's recommendations are anecdotal and based on personal experience.

Dr. Restak combines brain facts with his own musings to give the illusion of a scientific basis for his recommendations. However, there are no references to studies that confirm any of Dr. Restak's mind enhancing techniques. On the other hand, playing chess, listening to Mozart and reading more books isn't going to hurt anyone either. A better title might be "Use It or Lose It."

While you won't use this book for reference, it still rates three stars for entertainment.

23 of 23 found the following review helpful:


I'm Already Smarter!  Jul 29, 2004 By Joshua Allen
If I had read the reviews here, I never would have bought this book. Boy am I glad I bought this book first!

I won't deny that the writing style is a bit inconsistent (but the author does, after all, admit in the pages of this very book that he sometimes forces himself to write a certain number of pages per hour, which presumably takes precedence over consistency). I also would not deny that some of the chapters are more useful than others. For example, I found the space devoted to a literary description of how to do Tai Chi rather puzzling (if you want to learn Tai Chi, take physical lessons from someone who knows).

However, the fundamental high-level lessons of this book are backed up by research and are worth the price of the book alone. The basic lessons are things like: a) strengthening one part of your brain can strengthen others b) exercising the brain can help it work better c) there are many different types of cognition (cognition is not IQ), and all of these areas can be trained d) you can grow new neurons, the brain is more plastic than we originally believed, and your brain can actually get better with age.

These lessons are invaluable, and anyone who takes these lessons to heart should be actively seeking out new and creative ways to give his or her brain a continual full-brain workout. Much of the book is devoted to ideas about how to do just this; how to exercise the brain. But rather than pick apart each individual idea, you should view this as just a tiny sample of the sorts of things you can do to condition the brain, and an affirmation that creatively generating such brain-conditioning exercises is a useful lifelong goal.

Does it work? Since beginning my full-brain workout program, my scores on ThinkFast have gone up a number of levels and I sure *feel* smarter. You'll have to judge your own results for yourself.

36 of 41 found the following review helpful:


Maintain Your Brainspeed  Jan 15, 2002 By jettepilot "aplaneguy"
Maintain your airspeed and you'll live a lot longer is the first lesson a pilot learns. Same with your intellectual life; maintain your brainspeed by giving it new challenges everyday of your life.

If there are 30 people in a room, which is more likely; that nobody has the same birthday as somebody else in the room, or that at least two pepople share a birthday?

You have 99 pennies and I have one. You flip one of them. If it comes up heads, I give you my penny and the game is over. If it comes up, tails you give me a penny and we play again. On average, how many times will we flip coins until a game ends? Is it closer to 1 or closer to 100?

You have 12 identical coins, except one weighs slightly different than the rest. You have a balance that can detect minute differences in weight. what is the minimum number of comparisons you must perform to find the odd coin and determine if it heavier or lighter than the rest? Would you be surprised to know you can do it in 3 weighings?

The answers to such questions are within reach of most people. Devoting time each day to thinking about such 'games' can keep your brain up to speed and allow you to live richer life.

Dr. Restak offers a variety of ways to stimulate your thinking, have fun, and keep your brain healthy.

12 of 12 found the following review helpful:


Demonstrates depth of knowledge for multifaceted attack...  Jul 22, 2005 By Charles "research physician & father of 3 sons"
Usually when I read books on increasing intelligence, I'm disappointed. Usually one or two cliche' strategies surface in such books (with strategies that demonstrate the particular expertise of the author but ignoring many other strategies and forms of intelligence). With this book I was not disappointed.

I did not want to sit down and read this book from cover to cover. The wide variety of strategies required too much gear shifting to allow a fly through reading. I needed a day or two to think about how to apply many of the chapters while a few I just blew off as either already in place or not for me (Example: I already run and lift weights and know I will never make time for tai chi without giving up time for walking/jogging; walking's proven in multiple studies to prevent stroke and obesity...not so with tai chi).

So the selling point of the book (it's variety of strategies) makes it somewhat cumbersome to digest in a night but simultaneously makes the book the best I've seen on increasing intelligence.

Dr. Restak gives 28 strategies (each described in only a few pages). I'd recommend putting this book on the kitchen counter or at the bedside and thinking about a chapter and it's application every day or two.

I especially found interesting the last strategy about using technology to expand intelligence. I've written elsewhere (see review of "How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci") about the common practice of many of genius caliber to write in a journal. Dr. Restak takes the practice a step further to explain how journaling with current technology may enhance intelligence even further. The book's worth reading for the thoughts in this last chapter alone.

Having spent time with many of superior intelligence and having cared (as a physician) for many with very low intelligence, I think intelligence is probably overated as a source of happiness and perhaps isn't the supreme blessing some make it out to be. Still this book gives a definite plan for increasing native intelligence to the degree individual genetics might afford; it's this maximization of potential (whatever it might be) that I think gives worth to the idea of improving intelligence and to this book as a means to that goal.

For more on the subject, I recommend two books: For a more in depth analysis of journaling, read 1) How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. For a look at a particular technique recommended by Thoreau, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo, and others, see 2)Anytime...for as Long as You Want: Strength, Genius, Libido, and Erection by Integrative Sex Transmutation.



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