Keep Your Brain Alive: 83 Neurobic Exercises to Help Prevent Memory Loss and Increase Mental Fitness


Lawrence C. Katz - 1998
    These deceptively simple exercises help stimulate the production of nutrients that grow brain cells to keep the brain younger and stronger. Neurobics uses the five senses in unexpected ways and shakes up everyday routines. The exercises are offbeat, fun, and can be done anywhere, anytime. The result: a mind fit to meet any challenge-whether it's remembering a name, mastering a new computer program, or staying creative in your work.

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle


Emily Nagoski - 2019
    Many women in America have experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to be a woman in today’s world are two very different things—and women exhaust themselves trying to close the gap between them. How can you “love your body” when every magazine cover has ten diet tips for becoming “your best self”? How do you “lean in” at work when you’re already operating at 110 percent and aren’t recognized for it? How can you live happily and healthily in a sexist world that is constantly telling you you’re too fat, too needy, too noisy, and too selfish?Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Instead of asking us to ignore the very real obstacles and societal pressures that stand between women and well-being, they explain with compassion and optimism what we’re up against—and show us how to fight back. In these pages you’ll learn• what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle—and return your body to a state of relaxation• how to manage the “monitor” in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration• how the Bikini Industrial Complex makes it difficult for women to love their bodies—and how to defend yourself against it• why rest, human connection, and befriending your inner critic are keys to recovering and preventing burnoutWith the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in these pages—and will be empowered to create positive change. Emily and Amelia aren’t here to preach the broad platitudes of expensive self-care or insist that we strive for the impossible goal of “having it all.” Instead, they tell us that we are enough, just as we are—and that wellness, true wellness, is within our reach.

The Inflamed Mind: A Radical New Approach to Depression


Edward Bullmore - 2018
    But treatment for it has not changed much in the last three decades. In the world of psychiatry, time has apparently stood still... until now. In this game-changing book, University of Cambridge Professor Edward Bullmore reveals the breakthrough new science on the link between depression and inflammation of the body and brain. He explains how and why we now know that mental disorders can have their root cause in the immune system, and outlines a future revolution in which treatments could be specifically targeted to break the vicious cycle of stress, inflammation and depression. The Inflamed Mind goes far beyond the clinic and the lab, representing a whole new way of looking at how mind, brain and body all work together in a sometimes misguided effort to help us survive in a hostile world. It offers insights into the story of Western medicine, how we have got it wrong as well as right in the past, and how we could start getting to grips with depression and other mental disorders much more effectively in the future.

Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes


Mark Bittman - 2008
    Think about it this way: In terms of energy consumption, serving a typical family-of-four steak dinner is the rough equivalent of driving around in an SUV for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home.Bittman offers a no-nonsense rundown on how government policy, big business marketing, and global economics influence what we choose to put on the table each evening. He demystifies buzzwords like "organic," "sustainable," and "local" and offers straightforward, budget-conscious advice that will help you make small changes that will shrink your carbon footprint -- and your waistline.Flexible, simple, and non-doctrinaire, the plan is based on hard science but gives you plenty of leeway to tailor your food choices to your lifestyle, schedule, and level of commitment. Bittman, a food writer who loves to eat and eats out frequently, lost thirty-five pounds and saw marked improvement in his blood levels by simply cutting meat and processed foods out of two of his three daily meals. But the simple truth, as he points out, is that as long as you eat more vegetables and whole grains, the result will be better health for you and for the world in which we live.Unlike most things that are virtuous and healthful, Bittman's plan doesn't involve sacrifice. From Spinach and Sweet Potato Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing to Breakfast Bread Pudding, the recipes in Food Matters are flavorful and sophisticated. A month's worth of meal plans shows you how Bittman chooses to eat and offers proof of how satisfying a mindful and responsible diet can be. Cheaper, healthier, and socially sound, "Food Matters" represents the future of American eating.

Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


Maria Konnikova - 2013
    But is his extraordinary intellect merely a gift of fiction, or can we learn to cultivate these abilities ourselves, to improve our lives at work and at home?We can, says psychologist and journalist Maria Konnikova, and in Mastermind she shows us how. Beginning with the "brain attic"--Holmes's metaphor for how we store information and organize knowledge--Konnikova unpacks the mental strategies that lead to clearer thinking and deeper insights. Drawing on twenty-first-century neuroscience and psychology, Mastermind explores Holmes's unique methods of ever-present mindfulness, astute observation, and logical deduction. In doing so, it shows how each of us, with some self-awareness and a little practice, can employ these same methods to sharpen our perceptions, solve difficult problems, and enhance our creative powers. For Holmes aficionados and casual readers alike, Konnikova reveals how the world's most keen-eyed detective can serve as an unparalleled guide to upgrading the mind.

Overcoming Overeating: Conquer Your Obsession With Food


Jane R. Hirschmann - 1966
    OVERCOMING OVEREATING will help you to break out of the lonely cycle of diet, binge, recrimination and self-loathing. Both practical and reassuring, it offers realistic guidance on how to conquer an obession with food and restore your self-esteem.

The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat


Loren Cordain - 2001
    This book presents readers with a program that causes weight loss in overweight people - up to seventy-five pounds in six months while normalizing blood cholesterol, and increasing energy levels.

How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination


Sally Hogshead - 2014
    It all begins with understanding how the world sees you—at your best. How the World Sees You gives you the step-by-step method to describe yourself in just two or three words. This short phrase is your Anthem, the tagline for your personality. Your Anthem guides you like a mission statement, helping you to build your team, write a LinkedIn profile, or captivate an audience.This book includes a private code to unlock one free Fascination Advantage® online assessment. Your customized online report, based on Sally Hogshead's extensive research on what fascinates listeners, will reveal how you fascinate others, includingYour top two Fascination Advantages in communication The personality Archetypes you need on your team to optimize your success The five words to describe your personality's highest valueTo become more successful, you do not have to change who you are—you have to become more of who you are. How the World Sees You reveals who you are at your best so you can create better relationships, grow your business, and become intensely valuable to those who matter most.

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself


Kristin Neff - 2011
    Kristin Neff comes a step-by-step guide explaining how to be more self-compassionate and achieve your dreams in lifeThe relentless pursuit of high self-esteem has become a virtual religion—and a tyrannical one at that. Our ultracompetitive culture tells us we need to be constantly above average to feel good about ourselves, but there is always someone more attractive, successful, or intelligent than we are. And even when we do manage to grab hold of high self-esteem for a brief moment, we can't seem to keep it. Our sense of self-worth goes up and down like a ping-pong ball, rising and falling in lockstep with our latest success or failure.Fortunately, there is an alternative to self-esteem that many experts believe is a better and more effective path to happiness: self-compassion. The research of Dr. Kristin Neff and other leading psychologists indicates that people who are compassionate toward their failings and imperfections experience greater well-being than those who repeatedly judge themselves. The feelings of security and self-worth provided by self-compassion are also highly stable, kicking in precisely when self-esteem falls down. This book powerfully demonstrates why it's so important to be self-compassionate and give yourself the same caring support you'd give to a good friend.This groundbreaking work will show you how to let go of debilitating self-criticism and finally learn to be kind to yourself. Using solid empirical research, personal stories, practical exercises, and humor, Dr. Neff—the world's foremost expert on self-compassion—explains how to heal destructive emotional patterns so that you can be healthier, happier, and more effective. Engaging, highly readable, and eminently accessible, this book has the power to change your life.

Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, Endorphin Levels


Loretta Graziano Breuning - 2015
    Each page offers simple activities that help you understand the roles of your “happy chemicals”—serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphin. You’ll also learn how to build new habits by rerouting the electricity in your brain to flow down a new pathway, making it even easier to trigger these happy chemicals and increase feelings of satisfaction when you need them most. Filled with dozens of exercises that will help you reprogram your brain, Habits of a Happy Brain shows you how to live a happier, healthier life!

The Easy Way to Stop Smoking: Join the Millions Who Have Become Nonsmokers Using the Easyway Method


Allen Carr - 1985
    Allen Carr’s innovative Easyway method—which he discovered after his own 100-cigarette-a-day habit nearly drove him to despair—has helped millions kick smoking without feeling anxious and deprived. That’s because he helps smokers discover the psychological reasons behind their dependency, explains in detail how to handle the withdrawal symptoms, shows them how to avoid situations when temptation might become too strong, and enables them to stay smoke-free. Carr discusses such issues as nicotine addiction; the social “brainwashing” that encourages smoking; the false belief that a cigarette relieves stress; the role boredom plays in sabotaging efforts to stop; and the main reasons for failure. With this proven program, smokers will be throwing away their packs for good.

Keto Diet: Your 30-Day Plan to Lose Weight, Balance Hormones, Boost Brain Health, and Reverse Disease


Josh Axe - 2019
    Today, the ketogenic diet is the world's fastest growing diet, and with good reason. When practiced correctly, it has been proven to burn fat, reduce inflammation, fight cancer, balance hormones and gut bacteria, improve neurological diseases, and even increase lifespan. Unfortunately, many people remain unaware of several key factors that are crucial to the diet's success, setting them up for frustration, failure, and relapse.In Keto Diet, bestselling author Dr. Josh Axe sets the record straight, offering thorough, step-by-step guidance to achieving lifelong health. Unlike other books on the subject, Keto Diet identifies and details five different ketogenic protocols and explains why picking the right one for your body and lifestyle is fundamental to your success. Complete with shopping lists, delicious recipes, complementary exercise routines, and accessible explanations of the science confirming the diet's powerful effects, Keto Diet gives readers all the tools they need to say goodbye to stubborn fat and chronic disease once and for all.

The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size


Julia Cameron - 2007
    And time and again she has noticed an interesting thing: Often, in uncovering their creative selves her students also undergo a surprising physical transformation-invigorated by their work, they slim down. In The Writing Diet, Cameron illuminates the relationship between creativity and eating to reveal a crucial equation: creativity can block overeating. This inspiring weight-loss program, which can be used in conjunction with Cameron's groundbreaking book on the creative process, The Artist's Way, directs readers to count words instead of calories, to substitute their writing's food for thought for actual food. Using journaling to examine their relationship with food-and to ward off unhealthy overeating-readers will learn to treat food cravings as invitations to evaluate what they are truly craving in their emotional lives. The Writing Diet presents a brilliant plan for using one of the soul's deepest and most abiding appetites-the desire to be creative-to lose weight and keep it off forever. I'm a creativity expert, not a diet expert. So why am I writing a book about weight loss? Because I have accidentally stumbled upon a weight-loss secret that works. For twenty-five years I've taught creative unblocking, a twelve-week process based on my book The Artist's Way. From the front of the classroom I've seen lives transformed-and, to my astonishment, bodies transformed as well. It took me a while to recognize what was going on, but sure enough, students who began the course on the plump side ended up visibly leaner and more fit. What's going on here? I asked myself. Was it my imagination, or was there truly a before and an after? There was! -from The Writing Diet

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain


Lisa Feldman Barrett - 2016
    Scientists have long supported this assumption by claiming that emotions are hardwired in the body or the brain. Today, however, the science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology—ans this paradigm shift has far-reaching implications for us all.Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose theory of emotion is driving a deeper understanding of the mind and brain, and shedding new light on what it means to be human. Her research overturns the widely held belief that emotions are housed in different parts of the brain and are universally expressed and recognized. Instead, she has shown that emotion is constructed in the moment, by core systems that interact across the whole brain, aided by a lifetime of learning. This new theory means that you play a much greater role in your emotional life than you ever thought. Its repercussions are already shaking the foundations not only of psychology but also of medicine, the legal system, child-rearing, meditation, and even airport security.Why do emotions feel automatic? Does rational thought really control emotion? How does emotion affect disease? How can you make your children more emotionally intelligent? How Emotions Are Made answers these questions and many more, revealing the latest research and intriguing practical applications of the new science of emotion, mind, and brain.

Wired to Eat: How to Rewire Your Appetite and Lose Weight for Good


Robb Wolf - 2017
    - One month to reset your metabolism for lasting fat loss - One week to discover the carbs that are right for you- With weekly shopping lists and over 70 fully-anglicised recipes In WIRED TO EAT, superstar US diet expert, Paleo sensation and New York Times bestselling author of THE PALEO SOLUTION Robb Wolf will show you how to change your eating habits for good, tailor your diet to fit your personal needs and shed weight fast – and never put it back on!