Psychology Brain

Psychologists and neuroscientists struggle with how best to interpret human motivation and decision making. The assumption is that below a mental "surface" of conscious awareness lies a deep and complex set of inner beliefs, values, and desires that govern our thoughts, ideas, and actions, and that to know this depth is to know ourselves. In this profoundly original book, behavioral scientist Nick Chater contends just the opposite: Rather than being the plaything of unconscious currents, the brain generates behaviors in the moment based entirely on our past experiences.

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.

An internationally renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Wenk has been educating college and medical students about the brain and lecturing around the world for more than 40 years. With this essential book, he vividly demonstrates how a little knowledge about the foods and drugs we eat can teach us a lot about how our brain functions. The information is presented in an irreverent and non-judgmental manner, making it highly accessible to high school teenagers, inquisitive college students, and worried parents.

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions—even abandoning his phone for three months—but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention—and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

An accessible and engaging account of the mind and its connection to the brain. The mind encompasses everything we experience, and these experiences are created by the brain - often without our awareness. Experience is private; we can't know the minds of others. But we also don't know what is happening in our own minds. In this book, E. Bruce Goldstein offers an accessible and engaging account of the mind and its connection to the brain.

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.

ADHD is one of the most common neurological disor­ders in the United States—yet a staggering 75 percent of girls and women remain undiagnosed. Due to the gen­der gap in medical research, which does not account for symptoms manifesting differently in women—leading to increased problems with anxiety, depression, work­ing memory, sleep, energy, and concentration—many ADHD women are left to navigate a society that fails to understand their struggles and gifts.

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 this practical yet powerful guide, psychologist and neuroscience expert Catherine Pittman—author of Rewire Your Anxious Brain—introduces fifty new ways to work with your brain's neural connections to find lasting, effective relief from your worst anxiety symptoms. The chapters of this book can be used in any order, as needed, to give you the information you need to act now, whether you're at home or on the go. Also included are quick skills to help you soothe an anxious or stressed-out brain through physical movement, identifying what you care about, and banishing toxic thinking.

Mental training is just as important as physical training when it comes to success in sport. Like physical fitness, mental toughness is something that can be taught and learned. Bring Your "A" Game introduces key strategies for mental training, such as goal-setting, pre-performance routines, confidence building, and imagery. Each of the 17 chapters focuses on a single mental skill and offers key points and exercises designed to reinforce the concepts.

Are you struggling with attention problems, mood swings, food obsession, or depression? Whatever the issue, you have far more control over your thoughts, feelings, and behavior than you realize. Although medications may bring some relief, in Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind, Dr. Georgia Ede reveals that the most powerful way to change brain chemistry is with food, because that’s where brain chemicals come from in the first place. In this provocative, illuminating guide, Dr. Ede explains why nearly everything we think we know about brain-healthy diets is wrong.

By using the latest technology and evidence based brain training techniques, you can release years of old programming and limiting beliefs or habits that keep you stuck achieving the same results over and over again. Learn powerful brain-based methods, elite athletes, navy seals, CEOs, and astronauts use to perform at the highest levels possible. Innercise is a revolutionary process that will ignite and unleash your brain’s hidden power and show you the fastest path to maximizing your full potential, so you achieve your greatest victories and successes.

Nearly everyone swears - whether it's over a few too many drinks, in reaction to a stubbed toe, or in flagrante delicto. And yet we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies, and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we'll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.

The Memory Thief is the remarkable true story of a team of doctors who - through years of scientific sleuthing and observant care - discover a surprising connection between opioids and memory, one that holds promise and peril for any one of us.

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.

With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it’s far from perfect: our memory is unreliable; we can’t multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but.

What happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? Do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic experiences in early childhood influence adult behavior, even though we have no conscious memory of them? In The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive.

Strengthen your social and emotional intelligence by cultivating your innate somatic intelligence. This is powerful applied mind-body science, in the workplace and beyond. Tap the intelligence hidden in posture, gesture, and sensation and you will open the door to more meaning, greater courage, deeper connection, and more powerful leadership than you imagined possible.

A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.

Between the ages of 12 and 24, the brain changes in important and often maddening ways. It’s no wonder that many parents approach their child’s adolescence with fear and trepidation. According to renowned neuropsychiatrist Daniel Siegel, however, if parents and teens can work together to form a deeper understanding of the brain science behind all the tumult, they will be able to turn conflict into connection and form a deeper understanding of one another. In Brainstorm, Siegel illuminates how brain development affects teenagers’ behaviour and relationships.