Relationship Science

For centuries, poets and philosophers extolled the benefits of a walk in the woods: Beethoven drew inspiration from rocks and trees; Wordsworth composed while tromping over the heath; Nikola Tesla conceived the electric motor while visiting a park. Intrigued by our storied renewal in the natural world, Florence Williams sets out to uncover the science behind nature's positive effects on the brain.

In his essay On Anger, the Roman Stoic thinker Seneca argues that anger is the most destructive passion. This splendid new translation of essential selections from On Anger, presented with an enlightening introduction, offers listeners a timeless guide to avoiding and managing anger. Drawing on his great arsenal of rhetoric, including historical examples, anecdotes, quips, and soaring flights of eloquence, Seneca builds his case against anger with mounting intensity.

In richly anecdotal detail, Goleman brings to life the field of social neuroscience that has emerged in the decade since the publication of Emotional Intelligence. He shows that, far more than we are consciously aware, our daily encounters with parents, spouses, bosses, and even strangers shape our brains and affect cells throughout our bodies. Our relationships create a setpoint for our daily moods and influence our immune response; they are crucial to achievement in students and workers; they determine whether or not some genes are expressed, for good or ill.

How do master storytellers compel us? There have been many attempts to understand what makes a good story, but few have used a scientific approach. In The Science of Storytelling, Will Storr applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes to show how we can tell better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers - and also our brains - create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change.

Do you wish you could decode people? Do you want to know exactly what to say to your boss, your date, or your networking partner? You need to know how people work. As a human behavior investigator, Vanessa Van Edwards studies the hidden forces that drive our behavior patterns in her lab—and she's cracked the code. In Captivate she shares a wealth of valuable shortcuts, systems, and behavior hacks for taking charge of their interactions at work, at home, and in any social situation.

In his classic guide to understanding the opposite sex, Dr. John Gray provides a practical and proven way for men and women to improve their communication and relationships by acknowledging the differences between them. Once upon a time Martians and Venusians met, fell in love, and had happy relationships together because they respected and accepted their differences. Then they came to Earth and amnesia set in: They forgot they were from different planets.

We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.

Zweig, a veteran financial journalist, draws on the latest research in neuroeconomics, a fascinating new discipline that combines psychology, neuroscience, and economics to better understand financial decision making. He shows why we often misunderstand risk and why we tend to be overconfident about our investment decisions. Your Money and Your Brain offers some radical new insights into investing and shows investors how to take control of the battlefield between reason and emotion. Your Money and Your Brain is as entertaining as it is enlightening.

Discover the transformative power of sound in Healing Through Sound, an insightful guide that explores the science and ancient wisdom behind sound therapy. From singing bowls and tuning forks to binaural beats and vocal toning, this book delves into the ways sound vibrations can harmonize the body, mind, and spirit.

From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a continuum: that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between conflict and abuse, Schulman directly addresses our contemporary culture of scapegoating. This deep, brave, and bold work reveals how punishment replaces personal and collective self-criticism, and shows why difference is so often used to justify cruelty and shunning.

Are you too nice for your own good? Do family members manipulate you? Do coworkers take advantage of you? If this sounds familiar, listen to The Nice Girl Syndrome. In this breakthrough guide, renowned author and therapist Beverly Engel, who has helped thousands of women recognize and leave emotionally abusive relationships, can show you how to take control of your life and take care of yourself.

We all experience stuckness in our lives. We feel stuck in our relationships, career paths, body struggles, addiction issues, and more. Many of us know what we need to do to move forward—but find ourselves unable to take the leap to make it happen. And then we blame and shame ourselves, and stay in a loop of self-doubt that goes nowhere. The good news is you’re not lazy, crazy, or unmotivated. In this empowering and action-oriented guide, you’ll discover why we can’t think our way forward—and how to break through what’s holding us back.

Dr. Lisa Mosconi, whose research spans an extraordinary range of specialties including brain science, the microbiome, and nutritional genomics, notes that the dietary needs of the brain are substantially different from those of the other organs, yet few of us have any idea what they might be. Her innovative approach to cognitive health incorporates concepts that most doctors have yet to learn. Busting through advice based on pseudoscience, Dr. Mosconi provides recommendations for a complete food plan, while calling out noteworthy surprises.

For the past 35 years, John Gottman’s research has been internationally recognized for its unprecedented ability to precisely measure interactive processes in couples and to predict the long-term success or failure of relationships. In this groundbreaking book, he presents a new approach to understanding and changing couples: a fundamental social skill called “emotional attunement,” which describes a couple’s ability to fully process and move on from negative emotional events, ultimately creating a stronger relationship.

Navigating the challenges of long-term commitment takes effort - and it just got simpler, with this empowering, step-by-step guide to communicating about the things that matter most to you and your partner. Drawing on 40 years of research from their world-famous Love Lab, Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman invite couples on eight fun, easy, and profoundly rewarding dates, each one focused on a make-or-break issue: trust, conflict, sex, money, family, adventure, spirituality, and dreams.

"It takes an entire lifetime to learn how to die", wrote the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD). He counseled readers to "study death always", and took his own advice, returning to the subject again and again in all his writings, yet he never treated it in a complete work. How to Die gathers in one volume, for the first time, Seneca's remarkable meditations on death and dying. Edited and translated by James S. Romm, How to Die reveals a provocative thinker who speaks with a startling frankness about the need to accept death or even, under certain conditions, to seek it out.

Luke Garner has spent his entire life - all 12 years - in hiding. The government has outlawed families with more than two children. As the Garners' third child, Luke's very life is in danger. When Luke meets Jen, another "shadow child," he begins to question the government's policies.

Why have history's greatest minds - from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson along with today's top performers, from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities - embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers a daily devotional of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations.

All of us are faced countless times with the challenge of persuading others, whether we're trying to win a trivial argument with a friend or convince our coworkers about an important decision. Instead of relying on untrained instinct - and often failing as a result - we'd win more arguments if we learned the timeless art of verbal persuasion, or rhetoric.

Relationships have always been essential to human survival. Our bodies and brains are programmed to seek out connection, whether familial, romantic, or platonic. And yet, these vital bonds are often at the root of our deepest suffering. While our hearts are primed for compassionate connection, our nervous systems—which store all our past hurts and disappointments—are wired for threat and negativity.