In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed


Carl Honoré - 2004
    We strain to be more efficient, to cram more into each minute, each hour, each day. Since the Industrial Revolution shifted the world into high gear, the cult of speed has pushed us to a breaking point. Consider these facts: Americans on average spend seventy-two minutes of every day behind the wheel of a car, a typical business executive now loses sixty-eight hours a year to being put on hold, and American adults currently devote on average a mere half hour per week to making love.Living on the edge of exhaustion, we are constantly reminded by our bodies and minds that the pace of life is spinning out of control. In Praise of Slowness traces the history of our increasingly breathless relationship with time and tackles the consequences of living in this accelerated culture of our own creation. Why are we always in such a rush? What is the cure for time sickness? Is it possible, or even desirable, to slow down? Realizing the price we pay for unrelenting speed, people all over the world are reclaiming their time and slowing down the pace -- and living happier, healthier, and more productive lives as a result. A Slow revolution is taking place.Here you will find no Luddite calls to overthrow technology and seek a preindustrial utopia. This is a modern revolution, championed by cell-phone using, e-mailing lovers of sanity. The Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word -- balance. People are discovering energy and efficiency where they may have been least expected -- in slowing down.In this engaging and entertaining exploration, award-winning journalist and rehabilitated speedaholic Carl Honoré details our perennial love affair with efficiency and speed in a perfect blend of anecdotal reportage, history, and intellectual inquiry. In Praise of Slowness is the first comprehensive look at the worldwide Slow movements making their way into the mainstream -- in offices, factories, neighborhoods, kitchens, hospitals, concert halls, bedrooms, gyms, and schools. Defining a movement that is here to stay, this spirited manifesto will make you completely rethink your relationship with time.

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love


Amir Levine - 2010
    F. Heller reveal how an understanding of attachment theory-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love. Attachment theory forms the basis for many bestselling books on the parent/child relationship, but there has yet to be an accessible guide to what this fascinating science has to tell us about adult romantic relationships-until now.Attachment theory owes its inception to British psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who in the 1950s examined the tremendous impact that our early relationships with our parents or caregivers has on the people we become. Also central to attachment theory is the discovery that our need to be in a close relationship with one or more individuals is embedded in our genes.In Attached, Levine and Heller trace how these evolutionary influences continue to shape who we are in our relationships today. According to attachment theory, every person behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways:*ANXIOUS people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back.*AVOIDANT people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.*SECURE people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving.Attached guides readers in determining what attachment style they and their mate (or potential mates) follow. It also offers readers a wealth of advice on how to navigate their relationships more wisely given their attachment style and that of their partner. An insightful look at the science behind love, Attached offers readers a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma


Bessel van der Kolk - 2014
    Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children. Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives.

The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success: How to Use Your Brain's Executive Skills to Keep Up, Stay Calm, and Get Organized at Work and at Home


Peg Dawson - 2016
    Cutting-edge research shows that today's 24/7 wired world and the growing demands of work and family life may simply max out the part of the brain that manages complex tasks. That's especially true for those lacking strong executive skills--the core brain-based abilities needed to maintain focus, meet deadlines, and stay cool under pressure. In this essential guide, leading experts Peg Dawson and Richard Guare help you map your own executive skills profile and take effective steps to boost your organizational skills, time management, emotional control, and nine other essential capacities. The book is packed with science-based strategies and concrete examples, plus downloadable practical tools for creating your own personalized action plan. Whether on the job or at home, you can get more done with less stress. See also the authors' Smart but Scattered parenting guides, plus an academic planner for students and related titles for professionals.

The Girl with the Curly Hair - Asperger's and Me


Alis Rowe - 2013
    They have been by my side at the doctor’s. They have brought me out of shutdowns. They have supported me through depression. Yet, despite being a part of all of these things, they still don’t really know what it’s like being me, having Asperger’s Syndrome. So I wrote this book.The hardest thing about having Asperger’s Syndrome is that it can seem like an invisible condition. Females in particular, can be expert at masking their symptoms. Tomorrow I will get up and leave the house, go into work and get on with things, my challenges totally oblivious to the people around me. The next day will be the same. And the day after. I hope this book will build the bridge between people with Asperger’s Syndrome and the rest of the world. Most people with Asperger’s Syndrome are able and willing to work and live a “normal” life, with the right support and adjustment. The main problem is that most people are just unaware of how they can help. So, let us begin our journey into the wearing but wonderful world that is Asperger’s Syndrome.

Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD): The Essential Guide for Parents


Keri Williams - 2018
    These kids often have violent outbursts, steal, engage in outlandish lying, play with feces, and hoard food. They are broken children who too often break even the most loving of caregivers. Many parents of these children feel utterly isolated as family, friends, and professionals minimize their struggles. Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) - The Essential Guide for Parents is written by a parent who is in the trenches with you. Keri has lived the journey of raising a son with RAD and has navigated the mental health system for over a decade. This is the resource you’ve been waiting for – you won’t find platitudes or false hopes. What you will find is essential information, practical suggestions, and resource recommendations to provide a way forward. If you desperately need help navigating the difficult RAD journey with your child, this book is for you.

Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament


Kay Redfield Jamison - 1996
    The anguished and volatile intensity associated with the artistic temperament was once thought to be a symptom of genius or eccentricity peculiar to artists, writers, and musicians. Her work, based on her study as a clinical psychologist and researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists subject to exalted highs and despairing lows were in fact engaged in a struggle with clinically identifiable manic-depressive illness. Jamison presents proof of the biological foundations of this disease and applies what is known about the illness to the lives and works of some of the world's greatest artists including Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh, and Virginia Woolf.

The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships


Harriet Lerner - 1985
    Harriet Lerner, in her renowned classic that has transformed the lives of millions of readers. While anger deserves our attention and respect, women still learn to silence our anger, to deny it entirely, or to vent it in a way that leaves us feeling helpless and powerless. In this engaging and eminently wise book, Dr. Lerner teaches women to identify the true sources of our anger and to use anger as a powerful vehicle for creating lasting change.

What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing


Bruce D. Perry - 2021
    It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives.”―Oprah WinfreyThis book is going to change the way you see your life.Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. Joining forces with Dr. Perry, one of the world’s leading experts on childhood and brain development, Winfrey and Dr. Perry marry the power of storytelling with science to better understand and overcome the effects of our pasts.In conversation throughout the book, the two focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future―opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.

ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic


Alan Schwarz - 2016
    The numbers rise every year. And still, many experts and drug companies deny any cause for concern. In fact, they say that adults and the rest of the world should embrace ADHD and that its medications will transform their lives. In ADHD Nation, Alan Schwarz examines the roots and the rise of this cultural and medical phenomenon: The father of ADHD, Dr. Keith Conners, spends fifty years advocating drugs like Ritalin before realizing his role in what he now calls “a national disaster of dangerous proportions”; a troubled young girl and a studious teenage boy get entangled in the growing ADHD machine and take medications that backfire horribly; and big Pharma egregiously over-promotes the disorder and earns billions from the mishandling of children (and now adults). While demonstrating that ADHD is real and can be medicated when appropriate, Schwarz sounds a long-overdue alarm and urges America to address this growing national health crisis.

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey


Jill Bolte Taylor - 2006
    Through the eyes of a curious scientist, she watched her mind deteriorate whereby she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. Because of her understanding of the brain, her respect for the cells in her body, and an amazing mother, Jill completely recovered. In My Stroke of Insight, she shares her recommendations for recovery and the insight she gained into the unique functions of the two halves of her brain. When she lost the skills of her left brain, her consciousness shifted away from normal reality where she felt "at one with the universe." Taylor helps others not only rebuild their brains from trauma, but helps those of us with normal brains better understand how we can consciously influence the neural circuitry underlying what we think, how we feel and how we react to life's circumstances.

Help Me Live: 20 Things People with Cancer Want You to Know


Lori Hope - 2005
    But sometimes we don't know what to say or do and don't feel comfortable asking. With sensitive insights and thoughtful anecdotes, Help Me Live provides a personal yet thoroughly researched account of words and actions that are most helpful.

You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: A Self-Help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder


Kate Kelly - 1993
    This work focuses on the experience of adults with the disorder, combining practical information and moral support. It explains the diagnostic process and distinguishes ADD symptions from normal lapses in memory, lack of concentrations, and impulse behaviour, and addresses: how to achieve balance by analyzing one's strengths and weaknesses; how to get along in groups, at work, and intimate and family relationships - including how to decrease discord and chaos; mechanical aides and methods for getting organized and improving memory; and professional help, including medication and therapy.

The Vaccine-Friendly Plan: Dr. Paul's Safe and Effective Approach to Immunity and Health-from Pregnancy Through Your Child's Teen Years


Paul Thomas - 2016
    Based on the results from his pediatric practice of more than eleven thousand children, as well as data from other credible and scientifically minded medical doctors, Dr. Paul s vaccine-friendly protocol gives readers recommendations for a healthy pregnancy and childbirth vital information about what to expect at every well child visit from birth through adolescence a slower, evidence-based vaccine schedule that calls for only one aluminum-containing shot at a time important questions to ask about your child s first few weeks, first years, and beyond advice about how to talk to health care providers when you have concerns the risks associated with opting out of vaccinations a practical approach to common illnesses throughout the school years simple tips and tricks for healthy eating and toxin-free living at any age "The Vaccine-Friendly Plan" presents a new standard for pediatric care, giving parents peace of mind in raising happy, healthy children. Advance praise for "The Vaccine-Friendly Plan " Finally, a book about vaccines that respects parents! If you choose only one book to read on the topic, read"The Vaccine-Friendly Plan." This impeccably researched, well-balanced book puts you in the driver s seat and empowers you to make conscientious vaccine decisions for your family. Peggy O Mara, editor and publisher, "Mothering Magazine""

Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences


Thomas Armstrong - 2010
    ADHD. Dyslexia. Autism. The number of categories of illnesses listed by the American Psychiatric Association has tripled in the past fifty years. With so many people affected by our growing “culture of disabilities,” it no longer makes sense to hold on to the deficit-ridden idea of neuropsychological illness.With the sensibility of Oliver Sacks and Kay Redfield Jamison, psychologist Thomas Armstrong offers a revolutionary perspective that reframes many neuropsychological disorders as part of the natural diversity of the human brain rather than as definitive illnesses. Neurodiversity emphasizes their positive dimensions, showing how people with ADHD, bipolar disorder, and other conditions have inherent evolutionary advantages that, matched with the appropriate environment or ecological niche, can help them achieve dignity and wholeness in their lives.