The Last Best Cure: My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life by Donna Jackson Nakazawa

The Last Best Cure: My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life Reviews

• 
  Stephanie

  Donna Jackson Nakazawa was and is a sufferer of multiple chronic illnesses, at the worst of which she was paralysed. Trying to balance her illnesses and raising her family, she turned to the possibility of healing herself with her own mind and body. Especially notable is the fact that Nakazawa is a science writer, and approached everything from a scientific basis, which is a truly refreshing thing in any kind of "self help" book.
  
  This is a fascinating read, and one that I was drawn to because I suffer from chronic illness myself. That someone as sick as Nakazawa was can turn around even some of her illness in a year gives great hope to the thousands of people suffering from chronic illness gives great hope.
  
  Nakazawa does not shy away from the truth of her illness - she describes having to lie down at the top of the stairs to recover, her children stopping to check that she was okay. That was the moment that she decided she wanted to try to do something, to see if she could make things better for both her and her children.
  
  Over the course of the year, Nakazawa investigated many different techniques of harnessing her body's healing powers, including yoga, therapy and acupuncture. She always presents the scientific evidence behind the use of such techniques. Her progress doing yoga (which was helped by her finding of several amazing teachers - and she notes that she saw seven teachers total to find the ones who helped) was amazing. She went from basically not being able to balance to being able to successfully perform balancing poses.
  
  One of the major threads going through the book is the idea (supported by research) that traumatic experiences in childhood can essentially set the body up for the development of chronic illness later in life. While this is not going to be true for every sufferer, it is certainly an angle that should be at least considered. Nakazawa is brutally honest when she speaks about her own childhood experience where her father died and her mother withdrew. It's not the whole answer, but certainly it is part of it for her.
  
  This is a book that anyone with chronic illness would benefit from reading, even if they are skeptical about some of the techniques used. If nothing else, it reminds people that there is hope, and there can always be a "last best cure". You might just need to take the chance as Nakazawa did, and you might find yourself living a life of more joy.
  
• 
  Sarah Judd

  Everyone should read this book! I was very lucky to receive an early copy of this incredible book, which will be released on 2.21.13. I had been waiting for Nakazawa's next book, because I had loved reading Autoimmune Epidemic and had learned so much from it. I read her last book really for my loved ones who suffer from autoimmune disease, so I could understand their struggles more clearly. I wasn't expecting this book to speak to me personally, knowing that the author was going to be writing about dealing with a chronic physical condition earlier in her life. But as the pages unfolded, I realized that her desire to find joy and move past pain and all the fears that plague us -- WHATEVER our source of suffering might be -- was EXACTLY the place I find myself in at this point in my life. The further I got in the book, the more I identified with her, and the more I wanted her to WIN! She blends science with her own story seamlessly - making it easy to follow and fold into my understanding of myself. I came away with some great tools to find ways to increase my own sense of joy despite my migraines, my daily struggle with anxiety, and every other challenge in my life that feels like an obstacle. Nakazawa explains in this book how everything works against us, our biology, our brains, our lives. And yet taking the simple steps to engage in the science-based practices she outlines is vital because, as this book helped me to understand, finding joy is like taking a vitamin that's as protective as any medicine in our medicine cabinet. I will be taking that vitamin every day because I want my joy back, too. I will honestly be recommending this book to all my friends and will be buying more than a few copies next week to give as gifts.
• 
  Gretchen Heber

  Who knew a book about neuroscience could be such a page-turner? “The Last Best Cure: My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy and My Life” is that and more. You’ll weep and exalt with author Donna Jackson Nakazawa as she labors to find her health and her happiness in this amazing tale of self-discovery and self-healing. A brilliant science writer, Nakazawa makes complicated topics approachable and understandable. She makes you want to do exactly what she did on her year-long quest for healing, so that you, too, will find your joy.
• 
  Cyndi

  This is one of those books that has the potential to "go bad" at any time. It's about the mind-body connection, something I've long acknowledged and worked with, but which has a bad side. That is the extremely common slide into "if you just had a positive attitude, you wouldn't be sick." Us disabled folks get this a lot from people who haven't experienced what we're experiencing. But it worms its way into the medical profession too.
  
  To her credit, Nakazawa never goes there. She skirts the edges a couple of times, but never crosses over. It's refreshing to read. I have to say that, after years of hearing the victim-blaming that passes as support, much of the book made me nervous. Ultimately though, the support was real, the understanding was solid, and the advice was grounded in reality. She has various autoimmune and other illnesses that affect her daily life and, at times, incapacitate her. She has a strong background in the medicine that relates to her and uses it as she evaluates her new treatments.
  
  The Last Best Cure is a story of Nakazawa's year-long journey with three alternative methods of healing: meditation, yoga, and acupuncture. She tries each in turn and reports on the results, as she delves into the science and studies behind them. Despite the title, there is no cure in the common sense of the word. Her body doesn't miraculously become normal. But there is a shift. Over the year, she moves from being consumed with the effects of her illnesses to being a (usually) joyful person with a disability. This isn't about "positive thinking." She doesn't will herself to be better and she doesn't ignore her symptoms and limitations. She uses the tools of her three new treatments to rebalance her body so that it functions better, despite the illnesses.
• 
  Kathy

  This book was recommended to me by a friend/co-worker, who said everything about this book screamed my name. Really? Ok, I'm curious now. This is the story of Donna Jackson Nakazawa and how she went from suffering from a debilitating auto-immune disease, feeling horrible all the time to being a happier and healthier woman with tons of energy. One of the scenes in the beginning that touched me so much, because I've been there....is her lying on the floor after climbing a flight of stairs. She just couldn't go another step. She's laying there while her kids step over it....it's nothing new for them. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time at that moment.
  
  This book goes into a lot of medical mumbo jumbo that flew right over my head. But if you focus on what she did, it's inspiriing. She talks about how traumatic events from our childhood can actually physically make you sick as an adult. I mean they can actually alter the state and function of our cells. Really? It sounds crazy, but she cites many many sources that agree with that.
  
  The Last Best Cure is simply that. We follow the author through a year of taking her life back. And how improved she is at the end of the year, to me, is mind-boggling. It definitely gives me alot to think about!
• 
  Mario Streger

  The book is filled with researches and studies that support the view of the author. In fact, if you look for in the Internet, there are studies available on all kinds of subjects that support all possible outcomes. The author tries to convince the reader through lots of those researches, but sometimes it just seem as if she is trying to force a point of view, using all possible arguments. The exact opposite in fact could also be proved the same way.
  The basic idea of childhood trauma influencing the adult health is good, but the details of treatment and cure vary from person to person and there is surely not one course of action, or one "best cure" that works for everyone.
  On one example from the book, 94% of the pessimistic people who were studied eight years earlier died, while only 31% of the optimistic ones died (position 2041 of eBook, page 130)! I cannot believe this, otherwise there would be not much pessimists left on Earth!
  Something annoying is that the book is written for women, and the author always refers to the reader as a woman. I guess she didn't believe any men would read this kind of book!
• 
  Gary Meade

  This book was a revelation.
  
  In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Riveting from start to finish, there was rarely a moment that felt tedious or laboured.
  
  I don't like long reviews, so in short I'll say that there was so much for me to absorb and use. Considering my own chronic illness issues, I was very excited to read about Donna's healing journey which was very much grounded in science.
  
  Forget all the fads and expensive remedies: in this book you have one person's experience with time-tested therapies that are accessible by most. It's time we ended the self-help guru game and had more writing like this.
• 
  Maria

  I found both the author and the narrator annoying.
  
  The author chronicles one year of delving into the science behind how our immune system can be strongly affected by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), that orchid and dandelion stuff and other such things and helping her severe chronic illnesses through meditation, yoga, acupuncture.
  
  There are some really good descriptions of processes of healing from long term emotional wounds and chronic illness. Finding the scary emotions underneath dissociation, how hard it is to stay with them. How freeing. The gradualness of healing.
  
  It’s still told much to straightforwardly and tidily for my taste, implying such big leaps. I want more about how the bits of freedom are imperceptibly small and then there’s just another symptom of being scared of the positive change that incapacitates one.
• 
  Bev Siddons

  As a woman struggling with her own autoimmune disease, I'm always looking for new "cures" or reinforcement for research already done (and sometimes applied). Nakazawa's story touched my heart and my motivation button. She is a science/health journalist so she has access to doctors, scientists, and other health authorities. Also as a journalist, she is able to take science and make it quite readable. Her personal anecdotes add authenticity.
  
  Being nearly immobile and extremely fatigued, Nakazawa began looking into alternative and more holistic ways to help herself. This is her personal story through struggle to triumph. She gave herself one year to get joy back into her life by using meditation, yoga, psycho-therapy, acupuncture, mindfulness, and breathing exercises (not necessarily in that order). One fascinating thing about her journey is her descriptions of how much science is able to track the benefits of meditation and yoga on the fight or flight and pain centers in the brain. She found that we are all able to use these methods to control our own reactions to stress and pain and heal ourselves without adding toxic drugs to our already over whelmed bodies. I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone living with an autoimmune disease, cancer or other severe health issues.
• 
  Mary

  Excellent, for laypersons, educators, mental health professionals, anyone exploring the life-long emotional, mental and physical impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). What we think and feel affects us at the cellular level. This was a page-turner of a memoir for me. Donna Jackson Nakasama shares her path to greater health and joy through her year-long quest to begin a path to healing years of emotional and physical illness.
• 
  Athera

  Nakazawa’s story is inspiring. Within her book, she discusses how childhood adversity affects adulthood health and how chronic illness in the future affects daily life. What I really loved about this book is how determined Nakazawa is to try a more holistic side of healing through meditation like sending thoughtful, loving notes through your mind to the people you care about and to a person who pushes your buttons. Also, I love how she discusses not only forgiving others but also yourself for any judgements and insecurities you have and being mindful when negative feelings and thoughts appear. She took ownership of her life and although she attests that she is not completely cured from all her chronic illnesses, she is in a better state mentally and emotionally giving more strength to her body especially when she rode a bike for the first time in three decades. She has so many great lessons within this book, and one I will take with me is filling three things in my toolbox to keep me centered in my life. They are walking first thing in the morning, praying the moment I feel distressed, and sending loving thoughts to three different people a day. I do believe that I have more ownership of my life after reading this book. I don’t need to be holding all my negative experiences within me because they will only kill me. Letting go takes actions and most importantly time to create habits and learning how to be calm within yourself.
• 
  Emmanuelle

  Definitely worth a read if you have chronic illnesses/pain or autoimmune issues!!
• 
  Kami Weeks

  Interesting and inspiring - the author is honest in her depiction of chronic illness and the frustration and despair that result. She offers alternative treatments that have given her relief and also hope to hear readership. Very useful book, and one that I will keep in my collection.
• 
  Lory Widmer Hess

  A combination of healing memoir and research into the effectiveness of alternative therapies, including meditation, yoga, and acupuncture. The author, a science reporter, tried these for a year to see if they would help with her numerous auto-immune and other ailments, and enable her to live a more joyful life. The answer in her case was unquestionably yes, and the research supports this as well. What was most surprising to her was that her illness had to do with unprocessed childhood trauma, and that the release of this through the mind-and-body based healing modalities (along with a bit of talk therapy) seemed related to her healing, which was not a 100% cure but definitely significant. The way she was able to resist and deny the importance of her childhood suffering for so long--and nobody apparently ever tried to bring it to her attention before--speaks volumes to our general blindness to such connections. Fortunately, that climate seems to be changing and the clear connection between childhood trauma and a vast range of body and mind dysfunctions is being made. Now, how can we all find the healing we need, too? (Kudos to Nakazawa for trying to include modalities that are within most people's reach and not completely unaffordable, although she did have quite a lot of resources, clearly.)
• 
  Jill Neimark

  Donna Nakazawa is a very likeable narrator, and I hoped I might find some novel guidelines or insights here. It's a lively narrative, and sincere, and the science is credible. However, I came away feeling it had all slipped through my fingers. How do multiple serious chronic health problems, including Guillain-Barre, and many others, resolve with the tried and true interventions: therapy, yoga, walking meditation, and acupuncture? In the end, these are such standard therapies it is hard for me to countenance exactly how and why they worked. For instance, for some reason her current therapist is able to move her stuck emotions about childhood stressors and pain...in spite of the fact she herself already knows and understands them. Is this a uniquely gifted therapist (of which there are few)? Insights even if on target imho rarely lead to this kind of change...something about every intervention and how it helps, except for possibly consistent yoga, seems ultimately a mystery. Is it that she applied herself and most don't? But I think many do.
  
  All these techniques and approaches are worthy, but they are standard, and I'm not sure they could successfully nudge other diseases. Interestingly there is little here about diet (Terry Wahls is an example that comes to mind) or major lifestyle changes (beyond a quiet room of her own, and a shift in how she responds to stress/others' needs). I do think a daily meditation practice can be helpful no matter what.
  
  One of the key offerings of this book is that childhood trauma or pain truly resculpts the nervous system and can be expressed later as disease. The author's loss of her father to a careless surgery, and her mothers' resulting withdrawal and depression, is the trauma that her therapist sees as leading to Guillain Barre. But the quizzes on this kind of trauma in the back are reductive, and trauma is carried differently by different people. It may contribute to a wide variety of health problems, or may not impair health much at all--depending on the complexities of nature and nurture.
• 
  Amy

  If you can’t get ahold of a copy of this book, here’s the scientific takeaway:
  A) Adverse childhood experiences make you more likely to have health problems as an adult.
  B) Meditation changes your body on a cellular level and improves your physical and mental health.
  C) Yoga (if it’s safe for you to do) also improves your physical and mental health.
  D) Acupuncture is helpful for nausea (and possibly other symptoms).
  
  The author managed significant symptom reduction and quality of life benefits by switching the time per week that she was spending visiting medical specialists to practicing meditation, yoga, acupuncture, and therapy.
  
  I wish this had just been an article on the science, and left out 90% of the author’s personal stories. It was helpful and hopeful to learn of the new research that shows concrete health benefits of meditation. It was repetitive at best and obnoxious at worst to hear long story after long story of the author’s privileged middle-class suburban stress such as her childrens’ private school commute, or down-sizing to move into a 1600 square foot townhouse!!! (She thinks that’s small!!) while they build a house on land her parents-in-law gave them! Good grief. I wish someone had told her to leave all that out. She was a lot more sympathetic when she related her stress from her father’s sudden death when she was a child or the many serious health issues she’s dealt with as an adult. She ends on a hopeful note regarding how much better she is able to handle work and personal life thanks to her new regime of yoga, meditation, etc.
  
  Lastly, the author includes all of the studies that found sitting to be terrible for a person. However, other studies have shown that some of those fears were incorrect. Here's a few articles from reliable sources that explain what type of sitting is bad and what is not:
  
  
  https://www.npr.org/2019/07/01/737535...
  
  
  https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercis...
• 
  Angela

  This book highlights how bringing mindfulness and mindful practices, such as meditation and yoga, into your life can have profound effects on your physical well-being. This is not just a book for people who are ill. This is a book for anyone going through a period of heightened stress or suppressed health who wants to get to a better place emotionally and physically. Donna Jackson Nakazawa, a science writer and sufferer of multiple chronic illnesses, discusses how your Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) score can make you more prone to chronic disease and health issues later in life. The score is based on emotional or physical abuse or other factors (death in the close family, separation from a parent, etc.) experienced as a child. The theory is that the higher the score, the more likely you are to eventually suffer from illness. By expertly treating herself as both journalist and subject, the reader gets up close to Nakazawa's story (giving each chapter pace and momentum) while avoiding sentimentality and learning about important practices and mindsets for healing.
• 
  Rivka Levy

  I picked up this book half by accident, as the title belies what is actually an amazing personal story of one woman's journey to see if meditation, acupuncture and yoga could help her regain her health, after years of serious chronic issues that kept landing her in hospital.
  
  The answer came as a huge surprise to the scientifically-minded author: Yes!
  
  But only once she acknowledged and addressed the childhood issues that were actually at the root of her adult health problems.
  
  There's lots of science intertwined with the personal story, and this was book really touched a chord with me on many levels.
• 
  Dr. Sara Jean Barrett

  I have been recommending this book to many of my patients. Nakazawa beautifully articulates the struggle of chronic illness and the resilience of the human body and spirit. I appreciate the deep dive she does into the science around mind/body medicine. I was captivated by her journey, making this a quick read. It is so easy for patients to shrug off the importance of lifestyle changes in hopes that a pill or supplement will be their answer. I appreciate having this book in my toolbox to recommend to patients.
• 
  Betsy

  Donna Jackson Jakazawa is a medical writer who used herself as a research subject to measure the effects of meditation, mindfulness, yoga, and acupunture to treat her chronic conditions with the help of Hopkins doctor, Anastasia Rowland-Seymour. It not only provides extremely useful information and a "tool kit" but it reads as an interesting memoir. The author gave a talk at my library recently and this was the perfect year for this book to fall into my lap. A MUST READ!!!
• 
  Barbara (The Bibliophage)

  Not only did I spend the whole book rooting for the author to rediscover her health, I enjoyed every bit of science and detail she infused into this very readable book. I'll be buying copies for the acupuncturist and yoga teachers I know - plus a few friends living with chronic pain!
• 
  Allie

  This is a fascinating blend of memoir and science, and an enlightening read for anyone interested in the mind-body connection.
• 
  Mohammad Ashori

  This book was important for me to read (listen to). Every time I would start listening to this book, while jumping back and forth to other books, I would feel this deeply negative and judgemental feeling towards the person in this book. Usually when I feel this bad about something it has a lot to do with my own shit. I actually returned the book early to the library and decided I wouldn't finish it because the woman in this book frustrated me so much. Fortunately I can't leave a book unread once I start it so I decided to try it again - same thing. But this time I figured out that my negative feelings towards the main character stemmed from experiences in the past with patients just like her. The author reminded me of all my fibromyalgia patients who took no responsibility for their illness. My chronic opioid patients who always had some new pain complaint and needed and escalating dosage. My chronic pain and chronic neuropsychiatric patients who would go private doctor shopping to buy new diagnoses.
  I imagined how I would perceive this book if I wasn't a doctor. I would likely have a lot of empathy for this woman and commend her for being open and sharing her unbelievable medical journey.
  But as a physician I see a patient who keeps piling more and more things on her plate to the point of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. Yet she herself is somewhat clueless as to why all of these things are going on and then decides to jump into the scientific aspect of her alternative treatments so that she can justify them to her intelligent brain.
  The whole time listening to this book I had a commentary in my brain. I was yelling at her and I was poopooing her story. I was trying to poke holes into the clinical picture she painted. And I was able to accomplish all of that. In fact my plan was to leave a -1 review of this book here on GR and explain to the world why this book was just another story of a person who wanted a pity party and was distorting the truth and lying to the readers.
  Instead, now I can separate the 2 feelings I have about this book and the author. The one where as a doctor I feel cornered and helpless with patients like this. And the other where she could be my best friend or mother or sister and she's really struggling; trying to have the family life and adopt pets and be an author but also juggling her body and mind which aren't cooperating.
  And now after getting through this book I have some empathy for a person who lived a different life than myself and had different experiences and rationalizes the world differently from myself.
  Her journey is fascinating. But it won't change my interaction with patients like her in the future. Yet I'm not going to let my negative experiences in the clinic ruin my empathy for someone who is struggling just like every other human being out there.
• 
  Donna

  What did I think? I think about it all of the time. After reading this book I became really mindful of the different ways to obtain some non prescription relief. This is very helpful information for when you live in a world of "there's really no cure for what you have!" I loved the different techniques she used. I loved how she gave a voice to what I experience. I have arthritis in my spine and Polymyalgia. Polymyalgia is a rheumatic inflammatory disorder that causes muscle pain and stiffness, especially in the shoulders, neck and upper thigh areas. Compound that with the arthritis in my lower back, bone on bone, and yes, I look like a corpse walking around in the movie, The night of the living Dead!
  
  Thank you for writing this book!
• 
  Hedvig Madisson

  Seeing the cover of this book, I was tempted to put it back to the shelf - but I'm thrilled that I didn't. It appears as if it could be a spiritual self-help book without any actual evidence or explanations, instead it's written by a scientific journalist that combines her own struggle with impairment and pain with neuroscience, psychology and alternative ways of treatment, all in a year-long experiment to see if any of the more spiritual approaches would actually help.
  The end got slightly too positive and preachy I'm my opinion, but I greatly enjoyed the explanations of how different medications/activities actually influence the brain and why, down to the level of cellular growth.