Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body


Jo Marchant - 2016
    Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions and beliefs can ease pain, heal wounds, fend off infection and heart disease and even slow the progression of AIDS and some cancers.In Cure, award-winning science writer Jo Marchant travels the world to meet the physicians, patients and researchers on the cutting edge of this new world of medicine. We learn how meditation protects against depression and dementia, how social connections increase life expectancy and how patients who feel cared for recover from surgery faster. We meet Iraq war veterans who are using a virtual arctic world to treat their burns and children whose ADHD is kept under control with half the normal dose of medication. We watch as a transplant patient uses the smell of lavender to calm his hostile immune system and an Olympic runner shaves vital seconds off his time through mind-power alone.Drawing on the very latest research, Marchant explores the vast potential of the mind's ability to heal, lays out its limitations and explains how we can make use of the findings in our own lives. With clarity and compassion, Cure points the way towards a system of medicine that treats us not simply as bodies but as human beings.

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?


Julie Smith - 2022
    Dr Julie Smith's expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient, whether you want to manage anxiety, deal with criticism, cope with depression, build self-confidence, find motivation, or learn to forgive yourself. The book tackles everyday issues and offers practical solutions in bite-sized, easy-to-digest entries which make it easy to quickly find specific information and guidance.Your mental well-being is just as important as your physical well-being. Packed with proven strategies, Dr Smith's empathetic guide offers a deeper understanding of how your mind works and gives you the insights and help you need to nurture your mental health every day. Wise and practical, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? might just change your life.

Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life


Thich Nhat Hanh - 1990
    World-renowned Zen master, spiritual leader, and author Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how to make positive use of the very situations that usually pressure and antagonize us. For him a ringing telephone can be a signal to call us back to our true selves. Dirty dishes, red lights, and traffic jams are spiritual friends on the path to "mindfulness"—the process of keeping our consciousness alive to our present experience and reality. The most profound satisfactions, the deepest feelings of joy and completeness lie as close at hand as our next aware breath and the smile we can form right now.Lucidly and beautifully written, Peace Is Every Step contains commentaries and meditations, personal anecdotes and stories from Nhat Hanh's experiences as a peace activist, teacher, and community leader. It begins where the reader already is—in the kitchen, office, driving a car, walking a part—and shows how deep meditative presence is available now. Nhat Hanh provides exercises to increase our awareness of our own body and mind through conscious breathing, which can bring immediate joy and peace. Nhat Hanh also shows how to be aware of relationships with others and of the world around us, its beauty and also its pollution and injustices. the deceptively simple practices of Peace Is Every Step encourage the reader to work for peace in the world as he or she continues to work on sustaining inner peace by turning the "mindless" into the mindFUL.

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos


Jordan B. Peterson - 2018
    Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research.Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.What does the nervous system of the lowly lobster have to tell us about standing up straight (with our shoulders back) and about success in life? Why did ancient Egyptians worship the capacity to pay careful attention as the highest of gods? What dreadful paths do people tread when they become resentful, arrogant, and vengeful? Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure, and responsibility, distilling the world's wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith, and human nature while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its listeners.

You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life


Jeffrey M. Schwartz - 2011
     A leading neuroplasticity researcher and the coauthor of the groundbreaking books Brain Lock and The Mind and the Brain, Jeffrey M. Schwartz has spent his career studying the structure and neuronal firing patterns of the human brain. He pioneered the first mindfulness-based treatment program for people suffering from OCD, teaching patients how to achieve long-term relief from their compulsions. For the past six years, Schwartz has worked with psychiatrist Rebecca Gladding to refine a program that successfully explains how the brain works and why we often feel besieged by bad brain wiring. Just like with the compulsions of OCD patients, they discovered that bad habits, social anxieties, self-deprecating thoughts, and compulsive overindulgence are all rooted in overactive brain circuits. The key to making life changes that you want-to make your brain work for you-is to consciously choose to "starve" these circuits of focused attention, thereby decreasing their influence and strength. As evidenced by the huge success of Schwartz's previous books, as well as Daniel Amen's Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, and Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself, there is a large audience interested in harnessing the brain's untapped potential, yearning for a step-by-step, scientifically grounded and clinically proven approach. In fact, readers of Brain Lock wrote to the authors in record numbers asking for such a book. In You Are Not Your Brain, Schwartz and Gladding carefully outline their program, showing readers how to identify negative brain impulses, channel them through the power of focused attention, and ultimately lead more fulfilling and empowered lives.

Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry


Catherine M. Pittman - 2015
    The amygdala acts as a primal response, and oftentimes, when this part of the brain processes fear, you may not even understand why you are afraid. By comparison, the cortex is the center of “worry.” That is, obsessing, ruminating, and dwelling on things that may or may not happen. In the book, Pittman and Karle make it simple by offering specific examples of how to manage fear by tapping into both of these pathways in the brain. As you read, you’ll gain a greater understanding how anxiety is created in the brain, and as a result, you will feel empowered and motivated to overcome it. The brain is a powerful tool, and the more you work to change the way you respond to fear, the more resilient you will become. Using the practical self-assessments and proven-effective techniques in this book, you will learn to literally “rewire” the brain processes that lie at the root of your fears.

Money, and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Wealth, Health, and Happiness


Esther Hicks - 2008
    This book has been written to deliberately align you with the most powerful law in the universe—the Law of Attraction—so that you can make it work specifically for you.Money, and the Law of Attraction is formatted in five, vibrant essays:Part I – Processing of Pivoting and Positive AspectsPart II – Attracting Money and Manifesting AbundancePart III – Maintaining Your Physical Well-BeingPart IV – Perspectives of Health, Weight, and MindPart V – Careers, as Profitable Sources of PleasureAlso included is a free CD (excerpted from a live Abraham-Hicks workshop) that features the Art of Allowing your physical and financial well-being to come through.

The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery


Miguel Ruiz - 2009
    Since 1997, The Four Agreements has transformed the lives of millions of people around the world with a simple but profound message.Now bestselling author don Miguel Ruiz and his son, don Jose Ruiz, collaborate with this powerful sequel The Fifth Agreement.The Four Agreements provides the foundation for breaking thousands of agreements that create needless suffering and with The Fifth Agreement you recover all the power of your authenticity, which is who you really are when you are born.

The 4 Pillar Plan: How to Relax, Eat, Move, Sleep Your Way to a Longer, Healthier Life


Rangan Chatterjee - 2017
    In The Power of Balance, Dr Rangan Chatterjee presents an easily accessible plan for taking control of your health and your life.Everyday health revolves around Dr Chatterjee's four pillars: relaxation, food, sleep and movement. By making small, achievable changes in each of these key areas you can create and maintain good health - and avoid illness.It's not about excelling at any one pillar - what matters is the balance across all the things you do, including:· an electronic 'sabbath' once a week· aiming for 12 hours every day without food· exposure to sunlight first thing each morningBased on cutting edge research and his own experiences as a doctor, this book contains fascinating case studies from real patients. Practical and potentially life-changing, The Power of Balance is an inspiring and easy-to-follow guide to better health and happiness.

Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill


Matthieu Ricard - 2003
    Wealth? Fitness? Career success? How can we possibly place these above true and lasting well-being? Drawing from works of fiction and poetry, Western philosophy, Buddhist beliefs, scientific research, and personal experience, Ricard weaves an inspirational and forward-looking account of how we can begin to rethink our realities in a fast-moving modern world. With its revelatory lessons and exercises, Happiness is an eloquent and stimulating guide to a happier life.

The Power of Positive Thinking


Norman Vincent Peale - 1952
    In this phenomenal bestseller, Dr. Peale demonstrates the power of faith in action. With the practical techniques outlined in this book, you can energize your life -- and give yourself the initiative needed to carry out your ambitions and hopes. You'll learn how to: Expect the best and get it Believe in yourself and in everything you do Develop the power to reach your goals Break the worry habit and achieve a relaxed life Improve your personal and professional relationships Assume control over your circumstances Be kind to yourself

The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race


Daniel Z. Lieberman - 2018
    In pursuit of these things, it is undeterred by emotion, fear, or morality. Dopamine is the source of our every urge, that little bit of biology that makes an ambitious business professional sacrifice everything in pursuit of success, or that drives a satisfied spouse to risk it all for the thrill of someone new. Simply put, it is why we seek and succeed; it is why we discover and prosper. Yet, at the same time, it’s why we gamble and squander. From dopamine’s point of view, it’s not the having that matters. It’s getting something—anything—that’s new. From this understanding—the difference between possessing something versus anticipating it—we can understand in a revolutionary new way why we behave as we do in love, business, addiction, politics, religion – and we can even predict those behaviors in ourselves and others. In The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, George Washington University professor and psychiatrist Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, and Georgetown University lecturer Michael E. Long present a potentially life-changing proposal: Much of human life has an unconsidered component that explains an array of behaviors previously thought to be unrelated, including why winners cheat, why geniuses often suffer with mental illness, why nearly all diets fail, and why the brains of liberals and conservatives really are different.

The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us about Ourselves


Eric R. Kandel - 2018
    Kandel investigates The Disordered Mind to uncover what brain disorders reveal about human nature. This challenging study will not only help transform medical care but also encourage a new humanism based in part on the biological confirmation of individuality.Eric R. Kandel, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his foundational research into memory storage in the brain, is one of the pioneers of modern brain science. His work has helped shape our understanding of how learning and memory work. Building from this scientific research, Kandel explores one of the most fundamental questions we face: How does our mind, our individual sense of self, arise from the physical matter of the brain? The brain’s 86 billion neurons communicate with one another through very precise connections. If those connections are disrupted, the brain processes that give rise to our mind can become disordered, resulting in diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, and autism.The Disordered Mind illustrates how breakthrough studies of these disruptions can deepen our understanding of thought, feeling, behavior, memory, and creativity, and perhaps in the future will lead to the development of a unified theory of mind.

No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism


Chris Niebauer - 2019
    When he presented his findings to a professor, his ideas were quickly dismissed as “pure coincidence, nothing more.”Fast-forward 20 years later and Niebauer is a PhD and a tenured professor, and the Buddhist-neuroscience connection he found as a student is practically its own genre in the bookstore. But according to Niebauer, we are just beginning to understand the link between Eastern philosophy and the latest findings in psychology and neuroscience and what these assimilated ideas mean for the human experience.In this groundbreaking book, Niebauer writes that the latest research in neuropsychology is now confirming a fundamental tenet of Buddhism, what is called Anatta, or the doctrine of “no self.” Niebauer writes that our sense of self, or what we commonly refer to as the ego, is an illusion created entirely by the left side of the brain. Niebauer is quick to point out that this doesn't mean that the self doesn't exist but rather that it does so in the same way that a mirage in the middle of the desert exists, as a thought rather than a thing. His conclusions have significant ramifications for much of modern psychological modalities, which he says are spending much of their time trying to fix something that isn’t there.What makes this book unique is that Niebauer offers a series of exercises to allow the reader to experience this truth for him- or herself, as well as additional tools and practices to use after reading the book, all of which are designed to change the way we experience the world—a way that is based on being rather than thinking.

Your Brain On Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction


Gary Wilson - 2014
    Far from preparing them for fulfilling relationships, viewing an endless stream of porn videos led to unexpected symptoms. Perhaps most surprisingly, for the first time in history erectile dysfunction was becoming a significant problem for young men. This led to one of the largest informal experiments in the history of science. Tens of thousands of people have tried abstaining from sexually stimulating material in a process they call ‘rebooting’. Many of them reported startling changes, from improved concentration and elevated mood to a greater capacity for real-life intimacy. Gary Wilson has listened to the stories of those who have tried giving up internet porn and related them to an account of how the reward system of the brain interacts with its environment. And now a growing body of research in neuroscience is confirming what these pioneers have discovered for themselves – internet pornography can be seriously addictive and damaging. In Your Brain on Porn Wilson provides a concise introduction to the phenomenon of internet porn addiction that draws on both first-person accounts and the findings of cognitive neuroscience. In a voice that is generous and humane, he also offers advice for those who want to stop using internet pornography. The publication of Your Brain on Porn is a landmark in our attempts to understand, and remain balanced in, a world where addiction is big business.