Fitting the Mind to the World

Fitting the Mind to the World

Author: Colin W. G. Clifford

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005-05-05

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780198529699

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"This book brings together a collection of studies from international researchers who demonstrate the brain's remarkable capacity to adapt its representation of the visual world in response to changes in its environment."--BOOK JACKET.


The Happiness Trap

The Happiness Trap

Author: Russ Harris

Publisher: Exisle Publishing

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1921966343

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A guide to ACT: the revolutionary mindfulness-based program for reducing stress, overcoming fear, and finding fulfilment – now updated. International bestseller, 'The Happiness Trap', has been published in over thirty countries and twenty-two languages. NOW UPDATED. Popular ideas about happiness are misleading, inaccurate, and are directly contributing to our current epidemic of stress, anxiety and depression. And unfortunately, popular psychological approaches are making it even worse! In this easy-to-read, practical and empowering self-help book, Dr Russ Harries, reveals how millions of people are unwittingly caught in the 'The Happiness Trap', where the more they strive for happiness the more they suffer in the long term. He then provides an effective means to escape through the insights and techniques of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), a groundbreaking new approach based on mindfulness skills. By clarifying your values and developing mindfulness (a technique for living fully in the present moment), ACT helps you escape the happiness trap and find true satisfaction in life. Mindfulness skills are easy to learn and will rapidly and effectively help you to reduce stress, enhance performance, manage emotions, improve health, increase vitality, and generally change your life for the better. The book provides scientifically proven techniques to: reduce stress and worry; rise above fear, doubt and insecurity; handle painful thoughts and feelings far more effectively; break self-defeating habits; improve performance and find fulfilment in your work; build more satisfying relationships; and, create a rich, full and meaningful life.


Learned Optimism

Learned Optimism

Author: Martin E.P. Seligman

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-08-10

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0307803341

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The father of positive psychology draws on more than twenty years of clinical research to show you how to overcome depression, boost your immune system, and make yourself happier. "Vaulted me out of my funk.... So, fellow moderate pessimists, go buy this book." —The New York Times Book Review Offering many simple techniques anyone can practice, Dr. Seligman explains how to break an “I–give–up” habit, develop a more constructive explanatory style for interpreting your behavior, and experience the benefits of a more positive interior dialogue. With generous additional advice on how to encourage optimistic behavior at school, at work and in children, Learned Optimism is both profound and practical—and valuable for every phase of life.


Divergent Mind

Divergent Mind

Author: Jenara Nerenberg

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2020-03-24

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0062876813

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AUDIBLE EDITOR'S PICK A paradigm-shifting study of neurodivergent women—those with ADHD, autism, synesthesia, high sensitivity, and sensory processing disorder—exploring why these traits are overlooked in women and how society benefits from allowing their unique strengths to flourish. As a successful Harvard and Berkeley-educated writer, entrepreneur, and devoted mother, Jenara Nerenberg was shocked to discover that her “symptoms”--only ever labeled as anxiety-- were considered autistic and ADHD. Being a journalist, she dove into the research and uncovered neurodiversity—a framework that moves away from pathologizing “abnormal” versus “normal” brains and instead recognizes the vast diversity of our mental makeups. When it comes to women, sensory processing differences are often overlooked, masked, or mistaken for something else entirely. Between a flawed system that focuses on diagnosing younger, male populations, and the fact that girls are conditioned from a young age to blend in and conform to gender expectations, women often don’t learn about their neurological differences until they are adults, if at all. As a result, potentially millions live with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed neurodivergences, and the misidentification leads to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and shame. Meanwhile, we all miss out on the gifts their neurodivergent minds have to offer. Divergent Mind is a long-overdue, much-needed answer for women who have a deep sense that they are “different.” Sharing real stories from women with high sensitivity, ADHD, autism, misophonia, dyslexia, SPD and more, Nerenberg explores how these brain variances present differently in women and dispels widely-held misconceptions (for example, it’s not that autistic people lack sensitivity and empathy, they have an overwhelming excess of it). Nerenberg also offers us a path forward, describing practical changes in how we communicate, how we design our surroundings, and how we can better support divergent minds. When we allow our wide variety of brain makeups to flourish, we create a better tomorrow for us all.


The Distracted Mind

The Distracted Mind

Author: Adam Gazzaley

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2016-09-16

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0262336324

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A “brilliant and practical” study of why our brains aren’t built for media multitasking—and how we can learn to live with technology in a more balanced way (Jack Kornfield, author of The Wise Heart) Most of us will freely admit that we are obsessed with our devices. We pride ourselves on our ability to multitask—read work email, reply to a text, check Facebook, watch a video clip. Talk on the phone, send a text, drive a car. Enjoy family dinner with a glowing smartphone next to our plates. We can do it all, 24/7! Never mind the errors in the email, the near-miss on the road, and the unheard conversation at the table. In The Distracted Mind, Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen—a neuroscientist and a psychologist—explain why our brains aren't built for multitasking, and suggest better ways to live in a high-tech world without giving up our modern technology. The authors explain that our brains are limited in their ability to pay attention. We don't really multitask but rather switch rapidly between tasks. Distractions and interruptions, often technology-related—referred to by the authors as “interference”—collide with our goal-setting abilities. We want to finish this paper/spreadsheet/sentence, but our phone signals an incoming message and we drop everything. Even without an alert, we decide that we “must” check in on social media immediately. Gazzaley and Rosen offer practical strategies, backed by science, to fight distraction. We can change our brains with meditation, video games, and physical exercise; we can change our behavior by planning our accessibility and recognizing our anxiety about being out of touch even briefly. They don't suggest that we give up our devices, but that we use them in a more balanced way.


Fit Mind

Fit Mind

Author: Pat Divilly

Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd

Published: 2022-01-06

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 0717191338

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Thousands Of Thoughts Run Through Our Minds Every Day, Forming An Inner Story Or Soundtrack That Controls Our Lives. Our internal voice can be critical, sabotaging our attempts to achieve the things we want. By tuning into and becoming more aware of the stories we are telling ourselves, we can free ourselves from the thoughts and beliefs that are holding us back. Alongside concepts, ideas and new perspectives, this book contains an eight-week practical programme for mental and emotional fitness. Through journalling, meditation and self enquiry we can begin to train our thoughts and mind to support us in the pursuit of our dreams, opening up to a fresh new outlook and appreciation for life as it is rather than life as we feel it should be. 'Fit Mind will change your life for the better.'Geoff Thompson, Bafta-Winning Writer 'Contains simple yet powerful practices that deepen attention and awareness.'Dr Easkey Britton, Surfer And Author Of Saltwater In The Blood 'A transformative guide for anyone looking to make a serious change in their life.'Yung Pueblo, New York Times Bestselling Author


Being There

Being There

Author: Andy Clark

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1998-01-23

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780262260527

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Brain, body, and world are united in a complex dance of circular causation and extended computational activity. In Being There, Andy Clark weaves these several threads into a pleasing whole and goes on to address foundational questions concerning the new tools and techniques needed to make sense of the emerging sciences of the embodied mind. Clark brings together ideas and techniques from robotics, neuroscience, infant psychology, and artificial intelligence. He addresses a broad range of adaptive behaviors, from cockroach locomotion to the role of linguistic artifacts in higher-level thought.


The Mind Doesn't Work that Way

The Mind Doesn't Work that Way

Author: Jerry A. Fodor

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 9780262561464

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Jerry Fodor argues against the widely held view that mental processes are largely computations, that the architecture of cognition is massively modular, and that the explanation of our innate mental structure is basically Darwinian.


Manifesting Change

Manifesting Change

Author: Mike Dooley

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-07-12

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1582702764

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Shares advice on realizing one's goals and offers inspirational views on universal mysteries while explaining how to overcome psychological obstacles using spiritual exercises and illustrative analogies.


The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism

The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism

Author: Allan Hazlett

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-04-25

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0198889844

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Most people have wondered whether anything really matters, some have temporarily thought that nothing really matters, and some philosophers have defended the view that nothing really matters. However, if someone thinks that nothing matters--if they are a "nihilist about value"--then it seems that it is irrational for them to care about anything. It seems that nihilism about value mandates total indifference. This is the "problem of nihilism" Allan Hazlett addresses in The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism. Hazlett argues that the problem of nihilism arises because desire--and thus caring--is a species of evaluation that admits of irrationality. This contradicts the influential Humean view that desire does not admit of irrationality, which has a ready solution to the problem of nihilism: since desire does not admit of irrationality, it cannot be irrational to care about something that you believe does not matter. However, following G.E. Anscombe, Hazlett argues that desire has the same relationship to goodness as belief has to truth: just as truth is the accuracy condition for belief, goodness is the accuracy condition for desire. This reveals desire as an appropriate target of epistemological inquiry, in the same way that belief is an appropriate target of epistemological inquiry. Desires can amount to knowledge (in the same way that beliefs can amount to knowledge) and, crucially for the problem of nihilism, desire admits of irrationality (in the same way that belief admits of irrationality). Nevertheless, although it is obviously irrational to believe something that you believe is not true, Hazlett argues that it is not irrational to desire something you believe is not good, despite the fact that goodness is the accuracy condition for desire. This provides a solution to the problem of nihilism, and shows that nihilism about value can coherently be combined with the anti-Humean view that desire is a species of evaluation.