Peak Neuropsychology

01/09/2026

Today is National Forgiveness Day in the US (which I didn't know until I was researching the significance of this day for something else)! What a glorious day! Forgiveness is about freedom! First, to know that God has forgiven us for every sin, shortcoming, and misdeed and loves us infinitely is of staggering importance (actually, and technically, God in the New Covenant of the death of Jesus made the Old Testament law and its requirements obsolete other than as a rubric, but more on that another time...). Second, to consider that we can offer forgiveness to others who have hurt us, which frees us as much as it frees them, is a gift beyond measure to them and us. Third, and this is one of the hardest ones, to know that we can and should forgive ourselves is incredibly liberating. Finally, acknowledging that others can forgive us gives not only freedom, but hope for restoration of relationship(s) and reconnection.

But there is a deeper foundation for forgiveness than simply freedom (which is such a gift in itself), and it comes from what I have labeled The 4 Pillars of Truth About Humans. They are:

God made me whole and complete. This is true no matter what I am experiencing right now (illness, financial setback, criticism, etc.). I can experience damage, loss, or difficulty, but none of those things makes the person God created me to be defective or deficient.
God made me 100% acceptable. This is true no matter who does or does not accept me, or what they communicate to me in their words or behavior. Another person's acceptance or rejection cannot determine the acceptability God gave me in creating me.
God made me infinitely worthy. This is true no matter what I have done or am doing. No achievement or accomplishment, no matter how great, makes me more worthy than I am as a unique creation of God. Alternatively, no misdeed, crime, failure, etc., makes me any less than the infinitely worthy person God made me. This does not mean our behavior is irrelevant or without consequences; it means our behavior does not determine our worth.
God made me completely safe. This does not mean we cannot experience pain, loss, injury, suffering, etc., which all of us do. It means that the person God made me to be cannot be damaged or diminished by those experiences. Our bodies, brains, circumstances, and relationships can certainly be injured or damaged, sometimes profoundly, but injury does not make the person less whole, acceptable, or worthy. And our brains are designed to actively work to repair and restore damage of all kinds, given their level of fuel and information (again, as contained in the other Pillars).

What does this have to do with forgiveness, you may be asking?

Good question! First, God's forgiveness and restoration, and the 4 Pillars, are intimately tied to God's creation of us and corresponding love for us. Notice that none of the 4 Pillars are dependent on our behavior. They are not something we earn by doing the right things, nor can we lose them by doing the wrong things. There is tremendous freedom in that.

Second, because nobody can damage or diminish the person God made each of us to be, we can offer forgiveness freely. This does not mean that people cannot hurt us. They obviously can. People can cause physical injury, emotional pain, loss, betrayal, damaged relationships, and enormous suffering. Forgiveness does not require pretending otherwise. What others cannot do is make us less whole as persons, less acceptable, less worthy, or less who God created us to be. Those things are not contingent on or connected to what anybody else does or does not do to us, with us, for us, etc.

Third, because nothing we do can diminish our fundamental worth or make us defective as persons, we can fully forgive ourselves for whatever we have done. This does not minimize what we have done or eliminate our responsibility for it. In fact, I think it does just the opposite. We can acknowledge mistakes, failures, and even intentional disrespect, dehumanization, or infliction of pain without having to conclude that those actions have made us defective, deficient, unacceptable, unworthy, worthless, or fundamentally unsafe.

And this gives us tremendous freedom to acknowledge what we have done and ask others for forgiveness. We do not have to defend, rationalize, or minimize our behavior in order to preserve our worth because our worth was never dependent upon that behavior in the first place. Our wholeness/completeness, acceptability, worthiness, and safety are not at risk and cannot be at risk in any way. We can therefore take responsibility for what we have done without making what we have done the definition of who we are.

Finally, understanding that others can and often will forgive us offers hope for restoration of connection and relationship. Where this one gets tricky is understanding that others may not choose to forgive us in the moment or ever. Does this mean we are diminished or unworthy of forgiveness? Not at all! The 4 Pillars are still completely true, whether anybody else chooses to forgive us or works to restore our relationship. Their refusal to forgive may affect the relationship, and it may be painful, but it does not alter who we are or our worth. This means we can even forgive the other person for not forgiving us.

On this Day of Forgiveness, let us be grateful for the incredible power of giving and receiving forgiveness from others and ourselves. Forgiveness does not require denying injury, minimizing wrongdoing, avoiding responsibility, or pretending that painful things did not happen. Instead, it gives us the freedom to acknowledge those things honestly because none of them can determine our fundamental worth.

And let us also acknowledge that the ability and freedom to forgive come first from God's creation of us and then from His love for us.

12/04/2026

"Days of Heaven on Earth" — A 40-Year Nurse-Midwife from Australia Weighs In
Rachel has been a nurse and midwife for over forty years. She has also spent years in the wellness world — consulting in mineral balancing and supplementation, working with patients on their health from multiple angles, with what she describes as moderate results.
Twelve months ago she discovered the glucose protocol. After researching it carefully — as you would expect from someone with four decades of clinical experience — she began the protocol herself, convinced, in her own words, that she needed to fuel her brain fully to resolve lingering health concerns, to experience joy in every moment, and to have hope returned.
Her Amazon review of The Glucose Protocol is titled "Days of Heaven on Earth."
She writes: "The glucose protocol is an answer for all those who struggle with any worrying health issue and have yet to find a solution."
She reviewed from Australia. She has read several books in the Human Restoration Science series. She is a verified purchaser. And she posted her review before she had even finished the book — because she was, in her own words, eager to endorse it.
Forty years of clinical nursing and midwifery. Years in the wellness world. Moderate results with everything else. And then this.
That is not a casual endorsement. That is a clinician with four decades of experience telling you she found something that everything else did not provide.
The book has now reached readers on multiple continents — the United States, Australia, and beyond — across clinical and non-clinical backgrounds, across conditions that medicine has struggled to address, and across the full spectrum of human experience that chronic stress and inadequate brain fuel produces.
If you have read the book and found value in it — whether you are a clinician like Rachel, a patient who has been searching for answers, or a family member trying to understand what someone you love is going through — your Amazon review matters more than you might realize. Reviews are how this work reaches people who need it but do not yet know it exists. Twenty people have taken the time to leave a review so far. If you have read the book and have not yet left one, I would be genuinely grateful if you would. It takes two minutes and it puts the book in front of someone who may have been waiting for exactly this.
The link to leave a review is in the comments below.

06/04/2026

Nineteen days ago The Glucose Protocol launched.
I want to tell you what you did.
Your purchases and reviews pushed this book to number one in New Releases in Nervous System Diseases on Amazon — where it has stayed. To number three in General Books overall, among every book on the platform. And to a ranking in Computer Science books that no one planned for, driven entirely by readers interested in AI discovering a book about brain metabolism. That last one still surprises me.
More than that: this week I submitted the scientific framework underlying the book for peer review at Medical Hypotheses, the Elsevier journal designed for exactly this kind of novel clinical hypothesis. The book and the science are now moving forward together.
None of that happens without you. The people who bought it, read it, and took the time to write a review — you are the reason this work is reaching people who need it, and the reason the scientific community is beginning to pay attention.
Thank you! Genuinely.
— Dr. David Stephens, PsyD

01/04/2026

A skeptic just reviewed The Glucose Protocol. His background is in applied science — satellites, imaging, human health. Not a clinician. Not someone predisposed to agree with anything I've written. He read it carefully and wrote this:
"There is no patentable drug, no proprietary procedure, no windfall for pharmaceutical companies or health systems. The only party who benefits materially is the person who gets better. In a landscape where that alignment is rare, it's worth more than passing mention."
He also wrote: "Silver bullet or junk science? Neither confirmed nor denied — but worth taking seriously, and worth testing rigorously."
That is the most honest summary of where this work stands that anyone has written. And it comes from someone who was looking for reasons to dismiss it.
If you have been thinking about reading The Glucose Protocol — that framing is your permission. The book does not claim to prove anything. It claims to have identified something real that deserves formal investigation. A skeptical applied scientist agrees.
And if you have already read it and have been meaning to leave a review on Amazon — today is actually the last day of the book's launch window. Reviews posted in the first two weeks carry the most weight with Amazon's recommendation algorithm. Even three sentences makes a real difference for whether this work reaches the people who need it.
The link is in the first comment.
Thank you for being part of this.
Dave

30/03/2026

Something in a recent reader review stopped me in my tracks.
The reviewer is a health professional who has worked with thousands of patients. They came to The Glucose Protocol already deeply familiar with the underlying principles — they had explored and applied an extensive range of diets, protocols, and approaches during their own recovery from long-term illness.
Here is what they wrote:
"Improving glucose availability and restoring the fuel delivery system of the brain was a pivotal point in my recovery — moving my health forward like nothing else."
And then this — which I think is worth reading twice:
Among the specific changes they experienced: long-standing food sensitivities, particularly to high-FODMAP foods, largely resolved. Gut motility improved. And more than a year later, they continue to notice ongoing gains.
He also included pre and post photos in his Amazon review — documenting the physical changes he experienced through the protocol. You can see them for yourself on the Amazon page.
I want to sit with that for a moment. Food sensitivities resolving. Not through elimination diets or gut protocols or supplements — but through restoring the brain's ability to access and regulate its fuel supply.
This is what the book proposes: that many of the downstream problems we are treating symptom by symptom — including digestive dysfunction, food sensitivities, and gut motility issues — may share a common upstream source in how well the brain can access glucose. When that system is compromised by prolonged stress or nervous system activation, function declines in ways that are often misunderstood and rarely traced to their origin.
The tap is still running. The mop isn't working. And sometimes the answer is not another gut protocol — it's fueling the system that governs the gut in the first place.
If this resonates with your experience or someone you know, The Glucose Protocol is available now on Amazon. Link in the first comment.

29/03/2026

A personal ask from me to you.
If you have read The Glucose Protocol — or even if you're partway through — I want to ask something that would mean more to me, and especially to people who are suffering, than you might realize.
Would you take three minutes this week to leave a review on Amazon?
You don't need to have finished it. You don't need to write something long or formal. Three or four sentences about what you found valuable, what surprised you, or how it connected to your own experience is everything.
Here is why it matters right now: Amazon's recommendation system uses early reviews to decide whether to show a book to people who weren't already looking for it. Every review posted this week helps the book reach someone with PTSD, or cognitive decline, or chronic pain, or a loved one who has been told their conditions are separate and unrelated — and who doesn't yet know that there may be one upstream answer.
That's the person your review is for - not me.
Thank you!
Dave

27/03/2026

Thirty-seven years ago I began asking a question that has never left me: what does it actually mean to restore a human being to full function?
Not to manage their symptoms. Not to help them cope with a diminished version of themselves. To actually restore them — to the clarity, the energy, the emotional steadiness, and the joy that is their birthright as human beings.
That question took me across six continents. It took me through more than 1,200 patient relationships. It took me into the neuroscience of brain metabolism, into the literature on trauma and cognitive decline, into a collaboration with artificial intelligence that challenged everything I thought I knew about my own reasoning.
And it brought me here. To this book. To this moment.
The Glucose Protocol is not just a clinical framework. It is a statement about what is possible when we stop mopping and turn off the tap. When we stop treating the downstream and address the source. When we give the brain what it needs to do what it was designed to do — heal, regulate, restore, and govern the extraordinary system it inhabits.
If someone in your life is suffering — from memory problems, cognitive decline, mood disorders, chronic pain, fatigue, or any of the conditions this book addresses — please share this with them. The information exists. The protocol works. The recovery is real.
The Glucose Protocol is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback: https://amazon.com/dp/B0GRTYM397
And if you have read it, your Amazon review is a gift — not to me, but to the next person who needs to find it.
Reviews are starting to come in - within a week of the book launch and are being done by physicians and academics.
Thank you for being part of this.

The Glucose Protocol: A Practical and Scientific Guide to Brain Restoration of Health: A Brain Rehabilitation Expert's Conversation with an AI That Changed Everything (Human Restoration Science)

22/03/2026

Something unusual happened while I was writing The Glucose Protocol — and I think it is worth telling you about.
I used an AI — specifically Claude, developed by Anthropic — not to write the book, but to attack it. I wanted something that would push back on my reasoning, demand evidence, identify where my arguments were circular, and refuse to let me get away with sloppy thinking after thirty-seven years of being the expert in the room.
It worked. The AI raised objections I hadn't anticipated. It redirected arguments. It forced me to distinguish between what I had observed across 1,200 patients and what I was inferring from those observations. The book that resulted is more rigorous, more honest, and more scientifically defensible because of that process.
I preserved every dialogue.
What does it mean when an AI's reasoning materially shapes the architecture of a scientific argument? I don't have a clean answer. But I believe the question matters — for science, for medicine, and for how we think about what human and artificial intelligence can build together.
The Glucose Protocol is that collaboration. Available now on Amazon in Kindle and paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQQYNX4Z
If you have already read it, your Amazon review is one of the most powerful things you can do to help this work reach the people who need it. Thank you to everyone who has already posted one.

The Glucose Protocol: A Practical and Scientific Guide to Brain Restoration of Health: A Brain Rehabilitation Expert's Conversation with an AI That Changed Everything (Human Restoration Science)

20/03/2026

Today I want to share something I have been working toward for thirty-seven years.
The Glucose Protocol book is now available — and if you have ever been told that your memory problems, your anxiety, your fatigue, your depression, your chronic pain, or your mood are separate conditions requiring separate treatments, this book was written for you.
They are not separate. They are downstream.
After more than 1,200 patients across six continents, I identified a single upstream cause that conventional medicine has largely missed: the brain, chronically starved of its essential fuel, loses its capacity to govern, regulate, and repair the systems it controls. The result fills our diagnostic categories. The solution — restoring that fuel — empties them.
There is a metaphor I use throughout the book. Imagine your floor is flooded. You can mop forever. Or you can turn off the tap.
This book shows you how to turn off the tap.
The Glucose Protocol is available now in Kindle and paperback on Amazon: https://amazon.com/dp/B0GQQYNX4Z
If you read it and find it valuable, an Amazon review would mean the world to me — and would help this work reach the people who need it most.

The Glucose Protocol: A Practical and Scientific Guide to Brain Restoration of Health: A Brain Rehabilitation Expert's Conversation with an AI That Changed Everything (Human Restoration Science)

01/03/2026

Exciting news — I just completed a new book!
It's called The Glucose Protocol: A Practical and Scientific Guide to Brain Restoration of Health, and it's the fourth book in my Human Restoration Science series.
This one is different from anything I've written before. The subtitle tells the story: "A Brain Rehabilitation Expert's Conversation with an AI That Changed Everything."
The book is built around my extended conversations with Claude, an AI research assistant, in which we explored the science behind The Glucose Protocol — asking and answering each other's questions, testing hypotheses, and progressively building a complete scientific model for how and why glucose restores brain and body function. It includes extensive scientific support for every element of The Glucose Protocol, including its safety, its mechanism, and the clinical results across approximately 2,000 participants.
Part One is written so anyone can understand it. Part Two is written for scientists, researchers, and clinicians who want the full technical depth.
This is the book I'd hand to anyone who asks, "How does this work?" or "Where's the evidence?"
The previous books in the series are:
📘 Glucose 101: The Brain Dysfunction, Reclamation, and Recovery Handbook
📘 Despondency: The Real Pandemic
📘 Restored Hope: A Neuroscience Guide to Optimal Brain and Human Function (Amazon #1 Bestseller)
All are available on Amazon.
The new book is available for Kindle pre-order now for $12.99 USD. International pricing will vary by currency. Pre-orders will be delivered and paperback copies will be available for purchase on approximately March 24.

amazon.com: Pre-Orders

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