Those in recovery are often stuck in a dangerous loop of making poor choices based on instant feel-good payoffs. Rein in Your Brain offers 10 proven techniques for intervening on faulty impulsive thinking and actions that have a negative impact on our lives and relationships. Addiction--whether to mood-altering substances, gambling, sex, or food--stems in part from an over-reliance on the reward system of a primitive part of the brain that can push us to make poor choices based on an expectation of immediate gratification. Those of us in recovery often struggle with the compulsive thoughts and behaviors that are still programmed in our addictive brains well after the drinking and drugging has stopped. These often play out thoughtlessly in our interactions with others, damaging our relationships and growth as balanced human beings.Rein in Your Brain, by addiction expert Cynthia Moreno Tuohy, offers ten tools for breaking the cycle of impulsivity. These time-tested self-interventions include standing still in the moment, giving up control, not assuming the other person’s intent, tolerating differences, accepting emotions without giving them free reign, and differentiating between immediate fear-driven reactions and measured thoughts. By incorporating these tools in your daily interactions, your relationships can move from those of conflict to mutual respect and understanding.
"Rein in Your Brain" offers a self-help approach to acquiring the mental and emotional control that can make any equestrian from any discipline, whether they ride or drive competitively or recreationally, more effective in reaching his or her goals and dreams. Dr. Janeane Reagan's user-friendly presentation of how the human brain (and sometimes the horse brain) works gives the reader an understanding of what it takes to make changes that impact performance and enjoyment. Through this understanding, riders and drivers gain essential tools for improving their mental toughness, focus, emotional regulation, communication, stress management and, when needed, recovery from setbacks and from physical or emotional trauma. Each chapter helps the reader make these tools his or her own.
"Rein in Your Brain" offers a self-help approach to acquiring the mental and emotional control that can make any equestrian from any discipline, whether they ride or drive competitively or recreationally, more effective in reaching his or her goals and dreams. Dr. Janeane Reagan's user-friendly presentation of how the human brain (and sometimes the horse brain) works gives the reader an understanding of what it takes to make changes that impact performance and enjoyment. Through this understanding, riders and drivers gain essential tools for improving their mental toughness, focus, emotional regulation, communication, stress management and, when needed, recovery from setbacks and from physical or emotional trauma. Each chapter helps the reader make these tools his or her own.
How to rewire your brain to improve virtually every aspect of your life-based on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology on neuroplasticity and evidence-based practices Not long ago, it was thought that the brain you were born with was the brain you would die with, and that the brain cells you had at birth were the most you would ever possess. Your brain was thought to be “hardwired” to function in predetermined ways. It turns out that's not true. Your brain is not hardwired, it's "softwired" by experience. This book shows you how you can rewire parts of the brain to feel more positive about your life, remain calm during stressful times, and improve your social relationships. Written by a leader in the field of Brain-Based Therapy, it teaches you how to activate the parts of your brain that have been underactivated and calm down those areas that have been hyperactivated so that you feel positive about your life and remain calm during stressful times. You will also learn to improve your memory, boost your mood, have better relationships, and get a good night sleep. Reveals how cutting-edge developments in neuroscience, and evidence-based practices can be used to improve your everyday life Other titles by Dr. Arden include: Brain-Based Therapy-Adult, Brain-Based Therapy-Child, Improving Your Memory For Dummies and Heal Your Anxiety Workbook Dr. Arden is a leader in integrating the new developments in neuroscience with psychotherapy and Director of Training in Mental Health for Kaiser Permanente for the Northern California Region Explaining exciting new developments in neuroscience and their applications to daily living, Rewire Your Brain will guide you through the process of changing your brain so you can change your life and be free of self-imposed limitations.
According to researchers, the vast majority--a whopping 75-98 percent--of the illnesses that plague us today are a direct result of our thought life. What we think about truly affects us both physically and emotionally. In fact, fear alone triggers more than 1,400 known physical and chemical responses in our bodies, activating more than thirty different hormones! Today our culture is undergoing an epidemic of toxic thoughts that, left unchecked, create ideal conditions for illnesses. In Switch On Your Brain, Dr. Caroline Leaf gave readers a prescription for better health and wholeness through correct thinking patterns. Now she helps readers live out their happier, healthier, more enjoyable lives every day with this devotional companion to her bestselling book. Readers will find here encouragement and strategies to reap the benefits of a detoxed thought life--every day!
A too-busy brain can interfere with attention, concentration, mood and even the ability to make decisions and solve problems. Annibali shows you how to restore cognitive calm, and provides useful suggestions to help you understand your own brain functions so you can discover which techniques will work for you.
What makes one man a genius and another a criminal? Is there a physical explanation for these differences? For hundreds of years, scientists have been fascinated by this question. In Postcards from the Brain Museum, Brian Burrell relates the story of the first scientific attempts to locate the sources of both genius and depravity in the physical anatomy of the human brain. It describes the men who studied and collected special brains, the men who gave them up, and the sometimes cruel fate of the brains themselves. The fascination with elite brains was an aspect of the scientific mania for measurement that gripped the Western world in the mid-nineteenth century, along with a passionate interest in the biological basis of genius or exceptional talent. Many leading intellectuals and artists willed their brains to science, and the brains of notorious criminals were also collected by eager anatomists ghoulishly waiting in the execution chamber with a bag full of sharp metal tools. Focusing on the posthumous sagas of brains belonging to Byron, Whitman, Lenin, Einstein, the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, and many others, Burrell describes how the brains of famous men were first collected--by means both fair and foul--and then weighed, measured, dissected, and compared; exhaustive studies analyzed their fissural complexity and cell or neuron size. In various cities in Europe, Russia, and the United States, brain collections were painstakingly assembled and studied. A veritable who's who of literary, artistic, musical, scientific, and political achievement waited in Formalin-filled jars for their secrets to be unlocked. The men who built the brain collections werecolorful and eccentric figures like Rudolph Wagner, whose study of the brain of Carl Friedrich Gauss led to one of the great scientific debates of the nineteenth century. In America, the Fowler brothers brought phrenology to the United States and made a convert of Walt Whitman, whose brain was donated to science and disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Eventually, this project was abandoned, and with the discovery of new technologies the study of the brain has moved on to a higher plane. But the collections themselves still exist, and today, in Paris, London, Stockholm, Philadelphia, Moscow, and even Tokyo, the brains of nineteenth century geniuses sit idle, gathering dust in their jars. Brian Burrell has visited these collections and looked into the original intentions and purposes of their creators. In the process, he unearths a forgotten byway in the history of science--a tale of colorful eccentrics bent on laying bare the secrets of the human mind.
Rewiring the Brain is not just another book on stress. It explores a daring and innovative path to accessing the power of consciousness as a more effective and lasting solution to tackle stress and emotional afflictions. The present remedies, such as drills of positive thinking and self-hypnosis through beliefs, accrue only temporary solace and euphoria that wear off sooner than expected. Also our reasoning power is not able to rein in the unyielding force of negative emotions that fuel stress and depression. Hence, this book pursues a new approach. It outlines also certain ways that slow down aging process and enhance memory, attention span, and emotional equilibrium. The book is a fascinating journey to the inner world of self—its constructs of emotions, thoughts, and memories—to discover why one behaves the way one does. We go through myriads of joys and sorrows in the long course of life, but hardly have the patience to pause and ponder over the reasons that make them. Does it matter? Yes, much more than perhaps one realizes. Stress should not be seen as an isolated issue. It betrays the quality of individual self in its ceaseless action of living. We have one and only life—the most precious thing we happen to possess, and it is but natural that we struggle hard to do our utmost to make it a wonderful experience. Stress, in its overt or covert forms, works as a persistent factor that undermines the spontaneity, joy, and beauty of life. In this competitive and complex world, one faces countless factors of stress that are unavoidable and immutable, including illness, accident, or death. There are some other factors that can be altered through efforts, which play a more decisive role in life. These are individual attitude, mental tendencies, and ways one interacts with external world. There is much truth in the saying “Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.” An objective understanding of these individual factors means that half the battle of tackling stress is won. Hence, the book seeks to help the reader face and understand the workings of inner self and its intricacies without resorting to psychological escape or suppression. Yet an objective understanding is only the first step. It does not resolutely change our mental habits and conditionings that are hardwired in the brain. This suggests the need to go beyond the remedies prevalent now and look for fundamentally new solutions. In such effort, this book explores the possibility of using the power of consciousness to rewire the brain and tackle stress. The book has a refreshingly open-minded approach, devoid of religious ideologies or mystical beliefs, and does not involve psychological escapes. The practical methods and benefits are outlined in a scientific spirit and correlated with research by neuroscientists, psychologists, and medical institutes. The book does not offer shortcuts or peripheral solutions, because none exists. Neither does it offer self-hypnosis and gratifying beliefs that are concealed in prescriptive actions and mental drills. It is an irrefutable fact that consciousness embodies our unique sense of self and its complex architecture. Moreover, all our mental processes like feelings, memories, and thoughts are not only rooted in consciousness but sustained by it. It is logical that harnessing the power of consciousness, the primordial source of all mental phenomena, will unfold unique possibilities to tackle negative emotions and anxieties that rob us of the charm and joy of the miracle of life. A theoretical debate is being waged relentlessly among experts on the mysteries and elusive nature of consciousness. However, not much research is done on the practical use of the power of consciousness for tackling the human predicament of stress and anxiety. In that direction, Rewiring the Brain is a brilliant endeavor to synthesize the latest research on
Recent neuroscience, in replacing the old model of the brain as a single centralized source of control, has emphasized plasticity,the quality by which our brains develop and change throughout the course of our lives. Our brains exist as historical products, developing in interaction with themselves and with their surroundings.Hence there is a thin line between the organization of the nervous system and the political and social organization that both conditions and is conditioned by human experience. Looking carefully at contemporary neuroscience, it is hard not to notice that the new way of talking about the brain mirrors the management discourse of the neo-liberal capitalist world in which we now live, with its talk of decentralization, networks, and flexibility. Consciously or unconsciously, science cannot but echo the world in which it takes place.In the neo-liberal world, plasticitycan be equated with flexibility-a term that has become a buzzword in economics and management theory. The plastic brain would thus represent just another style of power, which, although less centralized, is still a means of control. In this book, Catherine Malabou develops a second, more radical meaning for plasticity. Not only does plasticity allow our brains to adapt to existing circumstances, it opens a margin of freedom to intervene, to change those very circumstances. Such an understanding opens up a newly transformative aspect of the neurosciences.In insisting on this proximity between the neurosciences and the social sciences, Malabou applies to the brain Marx's well-known phrase about history: people make their own brains, but they do not know it. This book is a summons to such knowledge.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this completely revised and updated edition, neuropsychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen includes effective "brain prescriptions" that can help heal your brain and change your life. “Perfection in combining leading-edge brain science technology with a proven, user-friendly, definitive, and actionable road map to safeguard and enhance brain health and functionality.”—David Perlmutter, M.D., New York Times bestselling author of Grain Brain In Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, renowned neuropsychiatrist Daniel Amen, M.D., includes new, cutting-edge research gleaned from more than 100,000 SPECT brain scans over the last quarter century and scientific evidence that your anxiety, depression, anger, obsessiveness, or impulsiveness could be related to how specific structures work in your brain. Dr. Amen’s “brain prescriptions” will help you: • To quell anxiety and panic: Use simple breathing techniques to immediately calm inner turmoil • To fight depression: Learn how to kill ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) and use supplements targeted to your brain type • To curb anger: Follow the Amen anti-anger diet and learn the nutrients that calm rage • To boost memory: Learn the specific steps and habits to decrease your risk for Alzheimer’s disease that can help you today • To conquer impulsiveness and learn to focus: Develop total focus with the One-Page Miracle • To stop obsessive worrying: Follow the “get unstuck” writing exercise and learn other problem-solving exercises You’re not stuck with the brain you’re born with.
