Baumeister, teams with New York Times science writer John Tierney to reveal the secrets of self-control and how to master it. In Willpower, the pioneering researcher Roy F. Baumeister collaborates with renowned New York Times science writer John Tierney to revolutionize our understanding of the most coveted human virtue: self-control.In what became one of the most cited papers in social science literature, Baumeister discovered that willpower actually operates like a muscle: it can be strengthened with practice and fatigued by overuse. Willpower is fueled by glucose, and it can be bolstered simply by replenishing the brain's store of fuel. That's why eating and sleeping- and especially failing to do either of those-have such dramatic effects on self-control (and why dieters have such a hard time resisting temptation).Baumeister's latest research shows that we typically spend four hours every day resisting temptation. No wonder people around the world rank a lack of self-control as their biggest weakness. Willpower looks to the lives of entrepreneurs, parents, entertainers, and artists-including David Blaine, Eric Clapton, and others-who have flourished by improving their self-control.The lessons from their stories and psychologists' experiments can help anyone. You learn not only how to build willpower but also how to conserve it for crucial moments by setting the right goals and using the best new techniques for monitoring your progress. Once you master these techniques and establish the right habits, willpower gets easier: you'll need less conscious mental energy to avoid temptation. That's neither magic nor empty self-help sloganeering, but rather a solid path to a better life.Combining the best of modern social science with practical wisdom, Baumeister and Tierney here share the definitive compendium of modern lessons in willpower. As our society has moved away from the virtues of thrift and self-denial, it often feels helpless because we face more temptations than ever. But we also have more knowledge and better tools for taking control of our lives. However we define happiness-a close- knit family, a satisfying career, financial security-we won't reach it without mastering self-control.

    As the cancer progressed and was treated, the author experienced behavioral and cognitive symptoms connected to a range of mental disorders, including her professional specialty, schizophrenia. Lipska's family and associates were alarmed by the changes in her behavior, which she failed to acknowledge herself. Gradually, after a course of immunotherapy, Lipska returned to normal functioning, recalled her experience and, through her knowledge of neuroscience, identified the ways in which her brain changed during treatment. Lipska admits her condition was unusual; after recovery she was able to return to her research and resume her athletic training and compete in a triathalon. Most patients with similar brain cancers rarely survive to describe their ordeal. Lipska's memoir, coauthored with journalist McArdle, shows that strength and courage but also a encouraging support network are vital to recovery

     The world-renowned psychologist Timothy Wilson shows us how to redirect the stories we tell about ourselves and the world around us, with subtle prompts, in ways that lead to lasting change. Fascinating, groundbreaking, and practical, Redirect demonstrates the remarkable power small changes can have on the ways we see ourselves and our environment, and how we can use this in our everyday lives. "There are few academics who write with as much grace and wisdom as Timothy Wilson. Redirect is a masterpiece." -- Malcolm Gladwell

    Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” —Theodore RooseveltEvery day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts.In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. The book that Dr. Brown’s many fans have been waiting for, Daring Greatly will spark a new spirit of truth—and trust—in our organizations, families, schools, and communities.

    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 to the non-emergencies of everyday life, and to deal effectively with old, or newly acquired, traumas (particularly post-traumatic stress disorder).

    He’s a sociopath. And your boss, teacher, and colleague? They may be sociopaths too.We are accustomed to think of sociopaths as violent criminals, but in The Sociopath Next Door, Harvard psychologist Martha Stout reveals that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people—one in twenty-five—has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. One in twenty-five everyday Americans, therefore, is secretly a sociopath. They could be your colleague, your neighbor, even family. And they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt. How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than the other people around them. They’re more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced. Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others’ suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win. The fact is, we all almost certainly know at least one or more sociopaths already. Part of the urgency in reading The Sociopath Next Door is the moment when we suddenly recognize that someone we know—someone we worked for, or were involved with, or voted for—is a sociopath. But what do we do with that knowledge? To arm us against the sociopath, Dr. Stout teaches us to question authority, suspect flattery, and beware the pity play. Above all, she writes, when a sociopath is beckoning, do not join the game. It is the ruthless versus the rest of us, and The Sociopath Next Door will show you how to recognize and defeat the devil you know.

    Throughout the book, Harris argues that there are important truths to be found in the experiences of such contemplatives—and, therefore, that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow.Waking Up is part seeker’s memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris—a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic—could write it.

    In this captivating fusion of science, history and personal memoir, writer David Adam explores the weird thoughts that exist within every mind, and how they drive millions of us towards obsessions and compulsions.David has suffered from OCD for twenty years, and The Man Who Couldn’t Stop is his unflinchingly honest attempt to understand the condition and his experiences. What might lead an Ethiopian schoolgirl to eat a wall of her house, piece by piece; or a pair of brothers to die beneath an avalanche of household junk that they had compulsively hoarded? At what point does a harmless idea, a snowflake in a clear summer sky, become a blinding blizzard of unwanted thoughts? Drawing on the latest research on the brain, as well as historical accounts of patients and their treatments, this is a book that will challenge the way you think about what is normal, and what is mental illness.Told with fierce clarity, humour and urgent lyricism, this extraordinary book is both the haunting story of a personal nightmare, and a fascinating doorway into the darkest corners of our minds.

     And You're About to Learn How to Use His Memory Strategies to Learn Faster, Be More Productive and Achieve More Success Most people never tap into 10% of their potential for memory. In this book, you're about to learn: How the World's Top Memory Experts Concentrate and Remember Any Information at Will, and How You Can Too Do you ever feel like you're too busy, too stressed or just too distracted to concentrate and get work done? In Unlimited Memory, you'll learn how the world's best memory masters get themselves to concentrate at will, anytime they want. When you can easily focus and concentrate on the task at hand, and store and recall useful information, you can easily double your productivity and eliminate wasted time, stress and mistakes at work. In this book, you'll find all the tools, strategies and techniques you need to improve your memory. About the Author For over 20 years, KEVIN HORSLEY has been analyzing the mind and memory and its capacity for brilliance. He is one of only a few people in the world to have received the title International Grandmaster of Memory. He is a World Memory Championship medalist, and a two-time World Record holder for The Everest of memory tests. Kevin is also an author of four books, and the designer of a times table game with the Serious Games Institute at North-West University Vaal Campus. Kevin is a professional speaker, and assists organizations in improving their learning, motivation, creativity, and thinking.

    This book includes a chapter on friendship for women with ADHD.

    I simply meant all of us who have survived an abusive childhood thanks to an ability to adapt even to unspeakable cruelty by becoming numb.... Without this 'gift' offered us by nature, we would not have survived." But merely surviving is not enough. The Drama of the Gifted Child helps us to reclaim our life by discovering our own crucial needs and our own truth.

    The book contains proven strategies from a decade-long effort to accurately measure and increase emotional intelligence. Trusted by upper-echelon leaders inside companies worldwide, these strategies will enable you to capitalize on the skills responsible for 58% of performance in all types of jobs.Includes a passcode for online access to the world's bestselling emotional intelligence test, the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal®, which will show you where your EQ stands today and what you can do to begin maximizing it immediately.Rooted in sound research involving more than 500,000 responses, this new edition of the test will:--Pinpoint which of the book's 66 emotional intelligence strategies will increase your EQ the most.--Reveal the specific behaviors responsible for your EQ scores.--Allow you to test yourself a second time to measure how much your EQ has increased from your efforts.The book's smooth narrative style turns rigorous research into memorable stories and practical strategies that anyone can use to his or her advantage.With 90% of top performers high in EQ, and EQ twice as important as IQ in getting where you want to go in life, who can afford to ignore it?What people are saying about it:"Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is a fast read with compelling anecdotes and good context in which to understand and improve your score."--Newsweek"Surveys of 500,000 people on the role of emotions in daily life have enabled the authors to hone EQ assessment to a 28-question online survey that can be completed in seven minutes."--The Washington Post"Read worthy strategies for improving emotional intelligence skills make this our how-to book of the week. It's nice to know that average IQ doesn't limit a person to average performance. And who can resist an online quiz with instant feedback?"--Newsday"Gives abundant, practical findings and insights with emphasis on how to develop EQ. Research shows convincingly that EQ is more important than IQ."--Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"This book can drastically change the way you think about success...read it twice."--Patrick Lencioni, author, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team"At last a book that gives how to's rather than just what to's. We need no more convincing that emotional intelligence is at the core of life success. What we need are practical ways of improving it. Bradberry and Greaves brilliant new book is a godsend. It will change your life."--Joseph Grenny, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Crucial Conversations"Emotional intelligence is an extremely important skill for personal and professional success. This book is excellent and the learning included in the free online test is cutting-edge. I strongly recommend it."--Ken Blanchard, bestselling business book author of all time; coauthor The One Minute Manager®"I distributed the book to my entire team. We found it very helpful in our dealings with each other and our internal customers. With all the new buzzwords over the past few years, the heart and soul of a company's culture is how they support and promote emotional intelligence. Those with foresight see that emotional intelligence will separate the good companies from the great ones. This book is a wonderful tool for a grass roots approach. If your desire is to be a truly resonate leader that people will trust and follow, this is an opportunity that cannot only change your professional career, but also your personal relationships."--Regina Sacha, vice president, human resources, FedEx Custom Critical"In the fast lane of business life today, people spend more time on computer keyboards, blackberries and conference calls than they do in face-to-face communication. We're expected to piece together broken conversations, cryptic voicemails, and abbreviated text messages to figure out how to proceed. In this increasingly complex web, emotional intelligence is more important than ever before. This book is filled with invaluable insights and information that no one can afford to ignore."--Rajeev Peshawaria, executive director, Goldman Sachs International

    In fact, your body is actually endowed with many self-defense measures to hold on to fat. For example, fat can use stem cells to regenerate; increase our appetite if it feels threatened; and use bacteria, genetics, and viruses to expand itself. The secret to losing twenty pounds? You have to work with your fat, not against it. Tara explains how your fat influences your appetite and willpower, how it defends itself when attacked, and why it grows back so quickly. The Secret Life of Fat brings cutting-edge research together with historical perspectives to reveal fat’s true identity: an endocrine organ that, in the right amount, is critical to our health. Fat triggers puberty, enables our reproductive and immune systems, and even affects brain size.Although we spend $60 billion annually fighting fat, our efforts are often misinformed and misdirected. Tara expertly illustrates the complex role that genetics, hormones, diet, exercise, and history play in our weight, and The Secret Life of Fat sets you on the path to beat the bulge once and for all.

    Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing with glee across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless and all-consuming. And, most important, it’s fun. As we become adults, taking time to play feels like a guilty pleasure—a distraction from “real” work and life. 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. In fact, our ability to play throughout life is the single most important factor in determining our success and happiness. Dr. Brown has spent his career studying animal behavior and conducting more than six thousand “play histories” of humans from all walks of life—from serial murderers to Nobel Prize winners. Backed by the latest research, Play explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem solve, and more. Play is hardwired into our brains—it is the mechanism by which we become resilient, smart, and adaptable people. Beyond play’s role in our personal fulfillment, its benefits have profound implications for child development and the way we parent, education and social policy, business innovation, productivity, and even the future of our society. From new research suggesting the direct role of three-dimensional-object play in shaping our brains to animal studies showing the startling effects of the lack of play, Brown provides a sweeping look at the latest breakthroughs in our understanding of the importance of this behavior. A fascinating blend of cutting-edge neuroscience, biology, psychology, social science, and inspiring human stories of the transformative power of play, this book proves why play just might be the most important work we can ever do.

    Every new reader's brain possesses the extraordinary capacity to rearrange itself beyond its original abilities in order to understand written symbols. But how does the brain learn to read? As world-renowned cognitive neuroscientist and scholar of reading Maryanne Wolf explains in this impassioned book, we taught our brain to read only a few thousand years ago, and in the process changed the intellectual evolution of our species.Wolf tells us that the brain that examined tiny clay tablets in the cuneiform script of the Sumerians is configured differently from the brain that reads alphabets or of one literate in today's technology.There are critical implications to such an evolving brain. Just as writing reduced the need for memory, the proliferation of information and the particular requirements of digital culture may short-circuit some of written language's unique contributions—with potentially profound consequences for our future.Turning her attention to the development of the individual reading brain, Wolf draws on her expertise in dyslexia to investigate what happens when the brain finds it difficult to read. Interweaving her vast knowledge of neuroscience, psychology, literature, and linguistics, Wolf takes the reader from the brains of a pre-literate Homer to a literacy-ambivalent Plato, from an infant listening to Goodnight Moon to an expert reader of Proust, and finally to an often misunderstood child with dyslexia whose gifts may be as real as the challenges he or she faces.As we come to appreciate how the evolution and development of reading have changed the very arrangement of our brain and our intellectual life, we begin to realize with ever greater comprehension that we truly are what we read. Ambitious, provocative, and rich with examples, Proust and the Squid celebrates reading, one of the single most remarkable inventions in history. Once embarked on this magnificent story of the reading brain, you will never again take for granted your ability to absorb the written word.