Mental Health Science

Athena Aktipis of Arizona State University is a self-professed apocalypse enthusiast, and as the host of the podcast Zombified, she knows the undead inside and out. With Zombified: Real-World Lessons from Fictional Apocalypses, she’s compiled her research and insights into a fascinating Audible Original that will have you thinking deeper about all those shambling, brain-hungry corpses in pop culture—not to mention our everyday lives. Drawing on years of research on zombies and zombification, these six lessons offer a fun way to explore and understand the many forces that influence us.

Many of us know we're putting too much pressure on our kids - and on ourselves - but how do we get off this crazy train? We want our children to succeed, to be their best, and to do their best, but what if they are not on board? A few years ago, Ned Johnson and Bill Stixrud started noticing the same problem from different angles: even high-performing kids were coming to them acutely stressed and lacking any real motivation. Many complained that they had no real control over their lives.

Off the beaten path, following unmarked trails, we are wired to explore. More than just a need to get outside, the search for the unknown is a primal urge that has shaped the history of our species and continues to mold our behavior in ways we are only beginning to understand. In fact, the latest neuroscience suggests that exploration in any form—whether it’s trying a new restaurant, changing careers, or deciding to run a marathon—is an essential ingredient of human life. Exploration, it turns out, isn’t merely a hobby—it’s our story.

Human sacrifice still goes on uncomfortably close to home - cases have been found in the U.S., Europe, and the United Kingdom. In other parts of the world, such as South America, ritual killing is almost commonplace. Human Sacrifice investigates the terrifying current spate of human sacrifices and ritual killings. Jimmy Lee Shreeve draws on police reports and interviews with the victims' families to paint a horrifying picture of ritual sacrifice at home and abroad.

Did you know you can beat stress, lift your mood, fight memory loss, sharpen your intellect, and function better than ever simply by elevating your heart rate and breaking a sweat? The evidence is incontrovertible: Aerobic exercise physically remodels our brains for peak performance. In Spark, John J. Ratey, MD, embarks upon a fascinating and entertaining journey through the mind-body connection, presenting startling research to prove that exercise is truly our best defense against everything from depression to ADD to addiction to aggression to menopause to Alzheimer's.

We may believe that we are the masters of our fates, but in reality, we are at the mercy of hundreds of trillions of single-celled organisms that exert control over every aspect of how our minds and bodies function. These are the diverse species of microbes that work together synergistically to communicate with each other and with every system in our bodies. You are your microbiome’s home, and it wants to take care of you, but first you have to protect it. In Gut Check, Dr. Steven Gundry reveals the emerging science proving that Hippocrates was right—all disease begins in the gut.

In recent years, numerous studies have shown that bright, charming, seemingly confident and socially skilled teenagers from affluent, loving families are experiencing epidemic rates of depression, substance abuse, and anxiety disorders - rates higher than in any other socioeconomic group of American adolescents. Materialism, pressure to achieve, perfectionism, and disconnection are combining to create a perfect storm that is devastating children of privilege and their parents alike.

If you're in sales, fear has cost you millions of dollars, and this audiobook is for you. You will learn exactly how to overcome this destructive fear in sales and replace it with confidence, optimism, gratitude, joy, and proactive sales work. These are the powerful principles in the new field of positive psychology that are transforming how we work and succeed. Selling Boldly is the first audiobook that leverages positive psychology to help you sell more.

In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding. His starting point is moral intuition - the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right.

Asian Americans are experiencing a racial reckoning regarding their identity, inspiring them to radically reconsider the cultural frameworks that enabled their assimilation into American culture. As Asian Americans investigate the personal and societal effects of longstanding cultural narratives suggesting they take up as little space as possible, their mental health becomes critically important. Yet despite the fact that over 18 million people of Asian descent live in the United States today—they are the racial group least likely to seek out mental health services.

One wrong move can undercut your message. Believe it or not, our bodies speak louder than our words. Postures, gestures, and expressions convey reams of information - and often not what you'd expect. A smile, for example, is usually considered welcoming. But crook one corner of your mouth higher, and you project superiority, subconsciously chasing other people away. Without Saying a Word explains how even the subtlest motions have meaning.

Our brains do their best to help us out, but every so often they can be real assholes - having meltdowns, getting addicted to things, or shutting down completely at the worst possible moments. Your brain knows it's not good to do these things, but it can't help it sometimes - especially if it's obsessing about trauma it can't overcome. That's where this life-changing book comes in. With humor, patience, science, and lots of good-ole swearing, Dr. Faith explains what's going on in your skull, and talks you through the process of retraining your brain to respond appropriately....

An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, MD, traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed - people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable.

Unconscious bias affects us all. From the smallest assumption to the most sweeping generalization, the way we think about others can unknowingly influence our behaviour and shape our culture. Acting as your mentor and guide, this book will take you through the most common forms of prejudice, including gender, race, size, age and sexuality. It also explores the psychology behind our biases and provides actionable tips and simple exercises to help you combat implicit judgements.

In Religion and Science (1961), Bertrand Russell's popular polemic against religious dogma, he covers the ground from demonology to quantum physics, yet concedes that science cannot touch the profound feelings of personal religious experience.

New York Times best-selling psychologist Dr. Meg Jay uses real stories from real lives to provide smart, compassionate, and constructive advice about the crucial (and difficult) years we cannot afford to miss.

Moses and Troy Horne here. Your mental-toughness guides! We know exactly how you feel. If you are reading this, you probably have a young athlete who struggles with in-game stress and maybe even sports performance anxiety. That is why this version was mostly written by Moses. As of the time of the writing of this book, Moses Horne is a 15-year-old elite athlete who can talk directly about the triumphs and struggles of working toward being mentally tough. This is the only book that I know of with input from an actual young athlete.

From one of America's greatest minds, a journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness. In Why Buddhism Is True, Wright leads listeners on a journey through psychology, philosophy, and a great many silent retreats to show how and why meditation can serve as the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age.

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed - scientists, criminologists, military psychologists.

An "elegant", "engrossing" (Carol Tavris, Wall Street Journal) examination of what we think we know about the brain and why - despite technological advances - the workings of our most essential organ remain a mystery.