Mental Brain

We've all experienced brain fog - misplaced keys, forgotten facts, a general feeling that you're just feeling off today. And many of us will experience that "fog" manifesting as something more permanent - either in ourselves or our loved ones. No matter what your current brain health state may be, You Can Fix Your Brain will enable and empower you to take concrete steps that will make an immediate difference in your brain’s vitality, clarity, and energy. Your memory will improve, fogginess will disappear, you’ll be less tired all the time, and much more.

In Social, renowned psychologist Matthew Lieberman explores groundbreaking research in social neuroscience, revealing that our need to connect with other people is even more fundamental, more basic, than our need for food or shelter. Because of this, our brain uses its spare time to learn about the social world-other people and our relation to them.

In Trauma and Memory, best-selling author Dr. Peter Levine (creator of the Somatic Experiencing approach) tackles one of the most difficult and controversial questions of PTSD/trauma therapy: Can we trust our memories? While some argue that traumatic memories are unreliable and not useful, others insist that we absolutely must rely on memory to make sense of past experience. Dr. Levine suggests that there are elements of truth in both camps.

Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals?

Our brains are doing their best to help us out, but sometimes we get hurt instead. And sometimes we hurt people we love, too, because we just don’t know what to do with all of our feelings. With humor and patience, Dr. Faith G. Harper shows you the science behind why your brain is acting up and ideas for new ways to respond when you’re feeling scared, sad, anxious, or angry. You can train your brain to be your friend and help you live a happy, calm, and healthy life.

How does the brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state.

One of the very best scientific predictors for how any child turns out - in terms of happiness, academic success, leadership skills, and meaningful relationships - is whether at least one adult in their life has consistently shown up for them. In an age of scheduling demands and digital distractions, showing up for your child might sound like a tall order. But as best-selling authors Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson reassuringly explain, it doesn’t take a lot of time, energy, or money. Instead, showing up means offering a quality of presence.

Are you truly in danger or has your brain simply "tricked" you into thinking you are? In The Worry Trick, psychologist and anxiety expert David Carbonell shows how anxiety hijacks the brain and offers effective techniques to help you break the cycle of worry, once and for all. Anxiety is a powerful force. It makes us question ourselves and our decisions, causes us to worry about the future, and fills our days with dread and emotional turbulence.

In this classic work of developmental psychology, renowned psychiatrist and the coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestseller What Happened to You? reveals how trauma affects children—and outlines the path to recovery How does trauma affect a child's mind—and how can that mind recover?...

It’s never too late to reprogram your habits. But how long does it really take and how can you make the changes stick? Leading habit researcher Dr Gina Cleo reveals revolutionary breakthroughs in behavioural science that will help you uncover how your brain works, and how to rewire it to make instant and lasting change in your life. Discover evidence-based techniques to break free from unwanted habits, master your motivation and navigate setbacks to achieve the lifestyle you’ve always wanted, no matter what stage of life you’re in.

We all want the power and motivation to create change in our lives. But how to get that in a stumbling dance of one step forward and two steps back? Negative emotions run rampant in many people's lives today; a reality that feels like a shrink wrap of suffering. Popular fallback solutions of performance-based goals and tools focus on extrinsic rewards like fame, wealth, or winning. But overuse of those rewards doesn't work for the long term and in fact weakens our confidence and motivation over time, leaving us vulnerable to failure and shame.

Enhance your ability to work skillfully with your clients’ trauma in this professional training taught by Dr. Bonnie Badenoch. Drawing on the latest research and neuroscientifically grounded treatment approaches in the area of trauma, Bonnie provides both the theory and clinical tools you need to more effectively support your clients. The instruction looks at both theoretical and experiential-based learning approaches.

The statistics on suicide are staggering. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 800,000 people die by suicide every year, which is one person every forty seconds, and for each completed suicide there may be twenty or more attempts. In How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me, Susan Blauner is the perfect emissary for a message of hope and a program of action for these millions of people.

Why is it easier to ruminate over hurt feelings than it is to bask in the warmth of being appreciated? Because your brain evolved to learn quickly from bad experiences and slowly from good ones, but you can change this.

We've all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless, all-consuming, and fun. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. We are designed by nature to flourish through play.

Most of us would agree that there’s a clear—and even obvious—connection between the things we believe and the way we behave. But what if our actions are driven not by our conscious values and beliefs but by hidden motivations we’re not even aware of? The “hidden brain” is Shankar Vedantam’s shorthand for a host of brain functions, emotional responses, and cognitive processes that happen outside our conscious awareness but have a decisive effect on how we behave.

BRAIN PRESCRIPTIONS THAT REALLY WORK. In this breakthrough bestseller, you'll see scientific evidence that your anxiety, depression, anger, obsessiveness, or impulsiveness could be related to how specific structures in your brain work. You're not stuck with the brain you're born with.

In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. In this landmark book, scientist and psychologist Drew Westen shows how electorates vote not with their heads but with their hearts, and how the marketplace that matters most is the marketplace of emotion - filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory.

In Neurodharma, the follow up to his classic Buddha’s Brain, New York Times best-selling author Rick Hanson, PhD, not only explores the new neuroscience of awakening, but also offers a bold yet plausible plan for reverse-engineering peak experiences, sense of oneness, and even enlightenment itself. And he does so with his trademark blend of solid science and warm encouragement, guiding you along this high-reaching path with good humor, accessible tools, and personal examples.

Losing your memory? Can't focus or concentrate? Do you have brain fog or tire easily? Have you lost your zest for life or motivation? Do people tell you this is all a normal part of aging? If so, your brain may be growing old too fast, or degenerating. Modern diets, a stressful lifestyle, and environmental toxins all take their toll on the brain. This doesn't just happen to seniors - brain disorders and degeneration are on the rise for young and old alike. The good news is the brain is extremely adaptable and wants to get well.