Ever find one of those websites you just can’t stop going to? A few months ago a friend sent me a link to TED - an annual conference devoted to technology, education and design. Now I’m hooked. Their site contains hundreds of archived talks from some of the world’s premiere thinkers and doers.

One of the most inspiring talks on the site is by Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist who had a massive stroke and was able to watch and experience as her brain functions shut down one by one. It’s a pretty amazing story and gives insight into just how complicated the brain is.

Often it’s not until something goes wrong that we think about brain health, and how it’s just as important to keep our brains healthy as it is to keep our bodies healthy.

When the brain is not working properly or is working in the wrong way, a person may experience difficulty thinking or focusing attention, extreme emotional highs and lows, or sleep problems. When these symptoms significantly disrupt a person’s life, we say that the person has a mental disorder or a mental illness.

While we know that mental disorders are brain disorders, Jill Bolte Taylor’s story is an example that brain problems do not always indicate mental illness.

~ D. Venn